[REVIEW] Delusion

Peter Abrahams received a rave review from Stephen King. With that endorsement, I couldn't resist reading Delusion. The first page introduced me to a prisoner named Pirate who identified people by the sounds of their footsteps. The description of his person, including some infirmities one would expect for a pirate, affirmed my reading selection, so I settled in for an entertaining read.

A hurricane unearthed evidence that Pirate was innocent of the crime that sent him to jail. Since she was the eyewitness who sent him away for the murder of her boyfriend, everything Nell Jarreau knew dissolved into disorder . How could she trust anything if she couldn't trust her own eyes? Her doubts sent her searching for more information about what she witnessed twenty years earlier. While Nell tried to find evidence that would make her memories more clear, Pirate sought some form of retribution for the years he had lost.

Then a local reporter contacted both of them time after time in hopes of getting a scoop. Information she brought to light brought more questions for Nell and Pirate as their lives continued to intersect.

Nell's own amateur investigations produced more evidence that caused her to question who she could trust. She even grew distrustful of her husband, the local sheriff, as her memories blurred. Somehow, she found answers in places as far away as the Bahamas, but all the answers brought her back home and back to the place where she watched one man she loved die.

I found the flashback scenes interesting because the author referred to Nell as Nellie which softened her. Somehow this made her younger and more carefree. He also dropped enough hints to piece together where her memories end and delusions begin while weaving enough action into the plot to make you still want to read to the very last word.

Time to clean up some of my old posts, so here is one that never got posted because I never found a recipe to attach, so I shall post it as a solitary critique. Enjoy!