Book Review: Fallen

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Fallen     Amazon US PB Amazon Canada PB
Kathleen George
Class/Genre:   Mystery
Bantam, July 2004, $6.99 400 pp.

Everyone knows that Pittsburgh Doctor Dan Ross is a humanitarian and he proves it to any doubters by funding Pacusset Safe House, a place for young adults in danger to go to for a safe haven and counseling. He is such a good person nobody understands why he was murdered. Although the police have no leads, a determined officer, working on his own time, tries to find Dan’s murderer. Dan’s wife Elizabeth takes her husband’s death hard, withdrawing into herself and rejecting the help of her friends.

She has a new next-door neighbor Frank Razzi, a man who rented the housee just so he could be next to Elizabeth. He spies on her and goes out of his way to be her friend. He has a teaching job in Athens Ohio where he is letting Christie, an eighteen-year-old girl stay there working for him. Both Christie and Elizabeth find out who is has at approximately the same time putting their lives in danger from a man who killed twice before.

By the time readers figure out who Frank really is they will be glued to their chairs, frantically turning the pages to see what he does to the two women he loves and hates. The obsessed police officer is an interesting character, a jaded cop who becomes obsessed with bringing in the killer of a very decent man. Kathleen George has written an engrossing work of psychological suspense that takes into account not only the crime, but also the heartbreak that caused it. She makes it easy to understand the killer even though the audience hates what he has done. FALLEN has one of the most conflicted antagonists this reviewer has ever read about which makes him fascinating in a sorrowful kind of way.

Harriet Klausner

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