The Shadow Tracer. Meg Gardiner. Dutton: Penguin Group (USA). June 2013. 368
pp. hbk. ISBN #: 9780525953227.
Sarah
Keller is a “skip tracer,” a person who finds people who have attempted to do
everything possible to hide, from subpoenas, arrest, whatever it is that
demands secrecy and constant moving, a life of living one step ahead of the
pursuer. Sarah is very, very good at
what she does. But before her job comes
her passionate love for her daughter, Zoe; at least that’s what she tells
anyone who asks. Zoe and Sarah have a
very special bond that is now threatened to completely unravel!
Right
after Sarah serves a subpoena on someone she had tracked relentlessly, Zoe is
injured in a bus accident. After being
taken to the hospital, the examination reveals two shocking revelations that
seem to prove that Sarah is not really Zoe’s mother and may be a murderer as
well. Now, the hunter becomes the
hunted, and the two, with the help of a friend, Danisha, speedily exit from
Oklahoma. They are not only being
pursued by the FBI and the Oklahoma police, because of another related murder
as well, but her ex-boyfriend Nolan’s family are in on the chase as well.
Nolan’s
father is a self-appointed, sociopathic prophet who is a polygamist, murderer,
fanatic, thief, dictator, wife and child abuser, and just about every other
negative label one can imagine. But one
can’t just write him off as he views rebellion as treachery and insists on the
absolute punishment – death – to all who cross his sick vision and decisions. He wants Zoe now and has put something inside
her that will enable him to easily find her – that is his family and followers
will as he’s presently locked in a maximum security prison.
So
the chase grows more and more intense as friend and foe get closer to Sarah and
Zoe. There are other threads within this
story in which friend becomes foe and vice versa. Every page is filled with high drama and one
comes to admire Sarah for her fervor in protecting Zoe and eluding her
pursuers. No, it doesn’t think the way
the reader believes it will; instead it leaves the reader wondering if there
will be a another hair-raising sequel to this gripping story.
The Shadow Tracer is great crime fiction, a simple plot
with many unexpected twists and turns, enough adrenaline-pumping action to keep
a reader up all night during and after one’s non-stop reading, and very real
scenarios that partially bear truth to realistic stories that have been in the
news in the last twenty-five years. Get
ready for a rollicking roller coaster ride – Meg Gardiner knows how to spin a
deadly mystery/crime novel!! Great read!
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