Gary Braver

Taryn Moore, a brilliant but self-centered college student, has a chip on her shoulder. Her dad left her and her mom years earlier to fend for themselves, and money has been tight ever since. Liam Reilly, Taryn's boyfriend since high school, dumped her for the fashionable, wealthy, and ambitious Elizabeth Whaley. One of the few bright spots in Taryn's life is Professor Jack Dorian's seminar, "Star-Crossed Lovers," a course that explores heartbreaking romantic relationships in literature. The syllabus includes a study of such ill-fated couples as Romeo and Juliet, Heloise and Abelard, Dido and Aeneas, and Jason and Medea. The class has special meaning for Taryn, a feminist who believes that men who betray their lovers should receive fitting retribution. She expresses this idea in a provocative paper, "Hell Hath No Fury: Violence and the Scorned Woman."

"Choose Me," by Tess Gerritsen and Gary Braver, is an engrossing thriller in which the authors employ several well-worn plot devices. Taryn is a possessive individual who does not take rejection well. She stalks and hounds Liam, and later sets her sights on her teacher, the married and dejected Jack Dorian, whose wife, Maggie, is a busy physician with little time for him. Predictable complications ensue, a key character dies tragically, and a pair of Boston detectives, the tough and savvy Frances "Frankie" Loomis and her partner, Mac, investigate this messy and depressing case.

The authors use foreshadowing, flashbacks, and alternating points of view effectively. Although the novel is clichéd at times, it holds our attention, since we are eager to learn who did what to whom and why. "Choose Me" explores such themes as the consequences of inappropriate behavior; the significance of trust in a marriage; and the ways in which an unhappy childhood can scar someone even after he or she has reached adulthood. The book focuses on flawed human beings who make appalling mistakes in judgment and pay for their transgressions. Although there is a far-fetched twist at the end, Gerritsen and Braver conclude this darkly humorous and entertaining work of fiction with a satisfying epilogue.
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RUMOR OF EVIL introduces Detectives Kirk Lucian and Mandy Wing as they investigate the supposed suicide of a Cambridge woman who was a pillar of her community. This investigation leads to a death nineteen years earlier of a foreign exchange student named Vadima Lupescu.

As Lucian and Wing investigate, they find connections to what had been written off as a tragic accident that happened one Halloween night nineteen years earlier. The hanging victim, Sylvie Cox Thornton, was one of a group of friends present at the party that ended with the tragic death of Vadima. The more they look at the earlier death, the more they become certain that it was a murder and that someone is worried about that fact coming out.

I enjoyed this story. I especially liked that the character of Kirk Lucian was so well developed. He is a man pushing fifty who is dealing with the hit-and-run death of his fourteen-year-old daughter and the possible dissolution of his marriage because neither he nor his wife can deal with their loss. Lucian is sometimes depressed and suicidal but uses his work to keep himself grounded. He is also fighting to reconcile with his wife while she is off exploring new possibilities with the contractor who recently completed a reno project at their home.

I had a pretty good, and correct, idea of who the murderer was based on the flashbacks to the events of nineteen years earlier, but I still enjoyed the journey of Kirk and Mandy figuring out the crime.… (more)