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Alone

by Lisa Gardner

Alone, by Lisa Gardner, is one of those suspense stories that grabs you in the most vulnerable places and won't let go – at least not until you've turned the last page. Ms. Gardner belongs in the top ten list of mystery authors – if such a list exists. Alone is a tale of the unjustly accused and political power as well as murder and mayhem. Reading some of the interviews with Lisa Gardner on the Internet, I was also intrigued by her delightful sense of humor – perhaps she could incorporate a little more of that into her work to balance the darker side of her books! Whatever she does, however, I believe it will come out well.

Bobby Dodge is a Massachusetts state trooper, a member of Special Tactics and Operations Police (STOP), an elite force with members all over the state. He's summoned to a domestic in his native city of Boston, and plants himself opposite the fourth floor apartment as a sniper with his eye in the rifle scope. When he knows the husband is about to kill his wife – and maybe his son as well – Bobby shoots him.

You'd think that would be the end of it, but it's only the beginning. Bobby is accused of murder by the husband's father, who happens to be a very influential judge. Plus the judge is blaming the wife as well as Bobby. It seems the wife, Catherine Gagnon, had a horrible experience when she was only a very young teenager – she was lured into a car by a man named Richard Umbrio, placed into an underground pit for a month where she was only visited by Richard when he wanted her to perform various sex acts on him, and finally discovered by hunters. She identified Umbrio in a lineup and he was put away in jail for twenty-five years. But now he's out again. The judge claims that Catherine has since been manipulative and only married his son to get the money. James Gagnon was wealthy – as is his father.

To confuse the issue further, Nathan Gagnon, the nine-year-old son whose father was shot while he buried his face in his mother's breast, is always in and out of the hospital, first for one thing then another. The Judge claims Catherine is using his illnesses as an excuse to keep James from divorcing her. Bobby is put on leave, pending the outcome of
a clerk-magistrate hearing the judge has set up – a hearing which would place Bobby
in the criminal category instead of in the civil one.

Bobby's sent to a psychiatrist to help him deal with the fact that he's killed a man. He doesn't want to go at first, but when it comes down to a choice between getting drunk and talking it off, he opts for the latter.

There are reasons for Nathan's illnesses, there are reasons for Judge Gagnon's actions, there are reasons why Bobby wants to separate himself from all of it, and there are reasons why Catherine behaves as she does. We only learn those reasons gradually. And Bobby has only a very limited time to make up his mind whether or not he'll go along with the judge, and harm Catherine and Nathan, or whether he'll continue to place himself in jeopardy and in an almost certain losing situation with the powerful, wealthy judge on one hand and himself, his middle-class lawyer, and the truth on the other.

By the time you get to the last pages of the novel, Lisa Gardner has provided you with several surprises, one right on top of the other. And none of them are too much or too involved to make you wish it was all less complicated; you can easily follow every twist she puts into the story. All of which makes Lisa Gardner a very special author, in my own humble opinion. Alone is really what it comes down to, for both Catherine and Bobby – but for different reasons. And Alone is what you don't want to be when you read this book!

Alan Paul Curtis

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