Review: Impulse

Here's a book that should grab you. Especially if you've ever in your life done something out of pure impulse. Right. That's the title of the book. Most of our impulsive behavior or utterances are inconsequential, at least as far as we know. But sometimes things go awry. Sometimes impulse leads to destruction, ruined lives, decades-long bitterness.

Here's a novel that operates effectively on two separate planes. Here we have distinct plot lines separated by twenty-five years and two thousand miles. Frank Smith is a successful mystery author. He lives in Phoenix, Arizona. Recently his wife of many years has disappeared. No body, no evidence of stolen credit cards in use. No possible sightings. Nothing. Who do the police look too? The impulse of course is the husband. A prime suspect, he had the most to gain in various ways. He's a mystery author. He's studied crime and is an insider. But he can't be charged, at least not yet, because there is zero evidence to get a warrant.

While this scenario is playing out, Frank goes to his twenty-fifth class reunion. The school is private Scott Academy outside of Baltimore, Maryland. It's Smith's first time back to the campus, even though his brother went to the same academy and his father taught there. Smith feels the residual bitterness rising anew when he walks back on a changed campus. His impulse is to can the whole thing and go home. He doesn't and at an early cocktail party discovers the nasty impulsive actions that lead to his brother's ejection from the school.

Impulsively, others at the reunion decide to approach the minor celebrity Smith has become for help solving a school mystery. Twenty-five years ago four young schoolmates disappeared from the campus never to be seen or heard from again. What happened? Smith reluctantly agrees to review the case files. What happens then becomes the body of this novel as it moves rapidly and effectively through plot number two.

Author Ramsey is well-equipped by education to handle this story and it shows. It shows in the meticulous pacing, the gradual unwinding of the disappearance, even as the other plot tightens. The language is excellent, the scenes nicely evoked. Readers will walk with Smith through the difficult pieces of his life and feel his nervousness his satisfaction, his anxiety. The scenes with his grown and married daughter and her troubles add nice counterpoint to the main themes. This is an excellent novel with an important message served up in a very enjoyable manner.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Carl Brookins - RAM

Book Review: Impulse