Deceived is the first novel I’ve read by Irene Hannon but it won’t be the last. The library had Deceived on an end cap where it caught my eye. I almost didn’t read it because the blurb sounded melodramatic.
Synopsis
Kate Marshall lost her husband and 4 year old son in a boating accident three years ago. Police on the scene found her husband’s body floating without a life jacket but never found the small boy’s body. Kate was especially distraught because she asked her husband to always use the life jackets.
Three years later Kate is going down the escalator in the mall when she sees a 7 year old blond boy going up. Despite believing her son is dead, Kate feels certain the boy could be her son, Kevin, because she hears him ask for a poppeysicle, the same thing her Kevin used to say.
Kate enlists a private detective who finds the boy with his supposed adoptive father. One thing leads to another and we finally have a happy ending.
Suspenseful
Hannon could have taken this story several different directions and we aren’t quite sure whether Kate is on the right track until about halfway through. She lets the suspense build gradually. Will the boy be Kate’s missing son? Is Kate dreaming or going insane? Will the supposed dad bolt? Or kill his almost-girlfriend?
The suspense is mild in some ways. We don’t have a mad killer or terrorist plot, just a man desperate to have a son back, a mother grieving and hoping, a growing love affair. Once we see that Kate is not nuts and her son could be alive, the questions then become how and why. And for investigator Conner Sullivan, how to prove enough plausibility that he can get DNA testing.
Characters
Deceived is not a coming of age story or a deep character study. The three main characters, Kate, Conner and supposed dad Greg Sanders are convincing three dimensional people. Kate and Greg were the most fleshed out. The other characters are believable and done well enough to be more than backdrops.
Summary
Another point is the book has minimal violence or gore and no sex scenes. I found both refreshing.
The full title of this novel is Deceived: A Novel (Private Justice) (Volume 3), telling me there are more books by Irene Hannon to seek out. Our library has several, next on my list to check out.
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