Kate Wilhelm: Skeletons

St. Martin’s Minotaur (Hardcover), ISBN 0-312-30075-1

If I thought pleading would help, I would beg, whimper, and whine trying to get my illustrious editor to allow me to give this book a sky full of stars to go with the crescent moons, but I know better than to even ask. Nevertheless, this book, a novel of suspense, ranks up there with the best of the best and deserves some extra recognition — and not just because Wilhelm happens to be one of my all time favorite authors.

A complex plot, a unique protagonist and some great psychological suspense blend together into a seamless whole and create a book that must be read, right then and right there. So don’t start reading late, because Skeletons will keep you up all night.

Lee Donne comes from a gifted family. Her mother claims three doctorates, her father’s genius led him into economics, and her grandfather’s fame rests on his brilliant Shakespearean scholarship. Lee possesses an eidetic memory, the ability to remember a visual representation of everything she sees. The gift doesn’t amount to much, because she spent the last four years in college, drifting from major to major, never garnering enough credits for a degree in any of them. Unable to graduate, jobless and without prospects, Lee agrees to housesit for her grandfather while he lectures in England. The sprawling house in rural Oregon lacks any close neighbors, and before many nights pass, Lee begins to hear strange noises.

Lee wants to discover the cause of the sounds, but she never expected the search to lead her from a dead man and a crime concealed in the Pacific Northwest to New Orleans. Nor did she expect to unearth family secrets so sinister they would endanger not only her own life but also those of others she holds dear.

Skeletons twists and turns, explores new territory and finally leads to an unexpected ending, one that comes out of nowhere and leaves the reader sighing and mutter, “Yes, of course. It had to be.”

Patricia Lucas White

Patricia Lucas White’s latest historical novel, To Last a Lifetime, was an Eppie finalist for 2003. To Last a Lifetime and two of her fantasy romances, the Sapphire Award-winning A Wizard Scorned and The Godmother Sanction, can be ordered through Hard Shell Word Factory. Her recent contemporary, PS, I’ve Taken a Lover, is available from Lionhearted Books.