Book Review: A Well-Known Secret

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

A Well-Known Secret     Amazon US PB Amazon US HC Amazon Canada PB Amazon Canada HC
Jim Fusilli
Class/Genre:   Mystery   Private Investigator
Series: Terry Orr # 2
Putnam, November 2002, $23.95, 288 pp.

It has been almost four years since Terry Orr lost his wife and infant son to a madman’s impulse. They died when a killer threw the baby on a track and his mother jumped down to try to get him before he was run over by an oncoming train. She failed. Terry left his career as a writer and a historian to become a private investigator, hoping that he will apprehend his family’s killer.

In the meantime his housekeeper asks him to find the daughter of a friend. Sonia Salgado just got out of prison after serving thirty years on a murder charge. A call to the assistant district attorney gets him an address, but when he goes to visit Sonia, he finds her dead. She is the victim of a homicide that Terry is unable to leave to the police to solve. He starts his own investigation, making enemies along the way and putting his own life in danger.

Jim Fusilli captures the effects the events of September 11 has on one family living near Ground Zero so that the reader knows how New Yorkers felt about that infamous day. A WELL KNOWN SECRET is a well written and fascinating crime thriller starring a hero who has suffered tremendous losses yet still finds the strength to go on. The support cast adds plenty of color to the city that never quits even after 9/11.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner