Lena is a fingerprint expert at a crime lab in the small city of Syracuse, New York, where winters are cold and deep. Suddenly, a series of crib deaths--indistinguishable from SIDS except for the fevered testimony of one distraught mother with connections in high places--draws the attention of the police and the national media and raises the possibility of the inconceivable: could there be a serial infant murderer on the loose? Orphaned as a child, out of place as an adult, gifted with delicate and terrifying powers of intuition, Lena finds herself playing a critical role in the case. But then there is the mystery of her own childhood to solve. Could the improbable deaths of a half-dozen babies be somehow connected to her own improbable survival?
This impressive audiobook grabs listeners from the opening scene and never loosens its grip. Elisabeth Rogers's confident voice takes charge and allows for complete immersion in the plot and the lives of the characters. Protagonist Lena works in a crime lab and offers far more than insight into fingerprints--her intuition about the cases she encounters adds another dimension to the story entirely. Rogers provides reasonable renditions of a variety of characters and takes care not to step on the action with an overbearing performance. Listeners intrigued by both the mystery and the forensic details of crime novels will be riveted by this well-produced audiobook. L.B.F. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine
Publishers Weekly...
...Turner's deft progression produces the intended reward: she not only tells of her heroine's growth, but she shows it through Sarah's writing and insights. The result is a compelling portrait of an enduring love, the rough old West and a memorable pioneer.--Publishers Weekly
Diana Abu-Jaber is the author of Crescent, which was awarded the 2004 PEN Center USA Award for Literary Fiction and the Before Columbus Foundation's American Book Award and was named one of the twenty best novels of 2003 by The Christian Science Monitor, and Arabian Jazz, which won the 1994 Oregon Book Award and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. She teaches at Portland State University and divides her time between Portland and Miami.
