Reviewer: Lori Graham
Title: No Doubt
Author: Kathleen O'Connor
Publisher: Whiskey Creek Press
ISBN: E-book 1-59374-476-5
Trade 1-59374-475-7
Release Date: 2006
Genre/Sub-genre: Romantic Suspense
Year/Setting: Present
Overall rating: 4.25
Sexual content rating: None
Language (profanity) content rating: None/Mild
Violent content rating: None except for the brief reference to the murder
Kathleen's Website:
www.gottawritenetwork.com/kathleenoconnor.html
Joanne Gallagher certainly has not lived a life of peacefulness as a suburban housewife although to many it might have appeared that way. Husband is well known in the community, lovely children, and a wonderful house in a great neighborhood. Nothing else could be needed or wanted except that underneath it all she was living a life of desperation and turned to alcohol to survive. After menopause, her chemical make up changed and she discovered the escape he needed wasn’t in the bottle and she began the journey to clean up her life.
Joanne was now attending AA on a regular basis along with volunteering her time with worthwhile causes. Granted, the marriage was gone and her relationship with her kids was in a shambles but she was working to rebuild things with them. Part of her volunteer work had her on the board of the Friends of the Library. She didn’t really feel like she fit in when she attended those board meetings but she did feel committed. After one particularly long meeting, the library director asked her to stay after and meet with him. The downside is he had a different kind of meeting in mind.
Enter Sunny Cloud, a Native American police officer who is working on this force as a favor to his friend, the police chief. Sunny was injured while working with a major crime unit so he isn’t as fast as he once was which was why the slower suburban life appealed to him initially. That is until the library director is found dead and all of the evidence is pointing directly toward Joanna Gallagher. For whatever reason as he looks at her as a "person of interest", his interest has little to do with the case.
Joanne’s character is quite well written. While my own personal situation was different, I was once in a position at home of similar "trapped" feelings. The road back can be quite difficult and painful. Joanne’s compassion for those she hurt is very evident in the methods she chooses to live by – in particular with her son, Mitch.
Mitch is on the police force and she is willing to answer any and all questions even against the advice of her lawyer in order to make things easier on her son. Her steadfastness to that goal begins to earn her some time with her son and the effort isn’t unnoticed.
I also enjoyed the very personal side of Sunny. Here is a man who is "macho" enough that he did a brief stint in briefs (doing underwear ads). Yet, he has the weakness of previous injuries which didn’t heal the way he anticipated or would have liked. In spite of all of that, he remains a strong, virile man and yet because of that he is more willing to see the vulnerable side of other humans.
All in all No Doubt leaves little doubt as a well done story. The only down side was I didn’t quite understand the final chapter which was actually the epilogue. I didn’t quite get where it was going but it took absolutely nothing away from the story itself.
Lori
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