Friday 7 March 2014

Book ~ "First Night of Summer" (2013) Landon Parham

From Goodreads ~ The quaint mountain town of Ruidoso, New Mexico, is the perfect place for Isaac Snow to raise his family. But when eight-year-old daughters, Caroline and Josie, commit an innocent act of heroism, media coverage attracts the wrong kind of attention. Soon, their life unravels, leading them to the crossroads of love and hate, forgiveness and retribution.

In the dark hours of a drizzly morning, Isaac, an ex-air force pilot, wakes to find a masked intruder cradling one of the twins in his arms. Before he can react, the man in black leaps through the nearest window, plummeting in a tangle of body parts and glass. Isaac charges in pursuit but is suddenly faced with a new dilemma. Caroline is unconscious, lying facedown in the lawn, cuts from the shattered window saturating her pajamas. If he gives chase, his little girl will surely bleed to death.

From a secretive loner with a pension for unrestrained violence to the pristine granite peaks of the Rocky Mountains - from laughter filled family dinners to a string of cross-country abductions, Landon Parham's debut novel relentlessly explores the horrific realities of unnatural lust and obsession. Taken well beyond the investigation and law-enforcement tactics, you'll find yourself steeped in journey of evil and torment, and the power of family that overcomes it all. Suspenseful, bold and meticulously researched; a true psychological thriller that captures the heart.

Isaac Snow has a happy life with his wife, Sarah, and their twin eight-year-old daughters, Josie and Caroline.  That all changes when in the middle of the night he interrupts an intruder who was trying kidnap his daughters from their bedroom.  Josie has been drugged and is asleep in her bed and Caroline has been tossed out the window.

The intruder gets away and Isaac has to decide whether to chase after him or tend to his injured daughter.  It turns out the intruder has a history of abducting young girls, fulfilling his fantasies with them and then killing them.  This book is about the Snow family's reactions to the attempted kidnapping and the intruder's killing spree, which eventually intersect.

I thought this was an interesting story.  According to the author, a child goes missing in the States every forty seconds.  Most are recovered alive but many are brutally murdered and others are never found.  So keep an eye on your kids!

I liked Isaac and his family ... they did what they had to do to move on from the experience.  Ricky, the intruder, was one sick puppy.  There were hints that he didn't have a happy childhood and that's why he was the way he was ... I felt zero sympathy for him.

For the most part, I enjoyed the writing, which was written in third person perspective.  I thought it moved along well and I wanted to keep reading to see what happened.

What I didn't like was that the descriptions of when Ricky had kidnapped, raped and then murdered the young girls were WAY too graphic.  I didn't need the gory details of exactly what he did minute-by-minute, which is what the author provided.  Very disturbing!  It's too bad because this would have been a much better book without these graphic details.  I can handle violence in books but this was over the the top, especially since it was with seven and eight year old girls.  For that reason, I won't read another of his books unless I am assured that he had toned them down.  Needless to say, this book is for a very mature reader because of the actions and language.

http://www.partnersincrimetours.net
I participated in this virtual book tour and received a copy of this ebook at no charge in exchange for my honest review.

1 comment:

Masshole Mommy said...

This sounds like a book I would like.