Mark David Abbott

John is an everyday, average man that works for an average business in India. His wife joined him anxious to capture the scenery on canvass. Then she was missing. John received no help from the police...they weren't even interested in looking for her...just told him she must have left. So John now is on his own with no close friends, and no idea what may have happened. I found the story to drag and spend too much time in John's mind. We didn't need to be privileged to his every thought and idea. It had some things going FOR it also. I liked that John wasn't "a Jack Reacher", he wasn't a private investigator or a super soldier...he was just a man on his own, in a strange land, who had suffered a terrible tragedy, just trying to find what happened to the woman he loved. I'm not sure if I will read book #2 or not...but this was not in any way a bad story...just a bit too slow.… (mer)

John Hayes and his bride of 2 years have been living in Bangalore, India, for a year. John accepted a 2-year post working for the same bank he had worked at before he was married. What a year it has been for John and Charlotte! Exotic adventures, exquisite sights, and food beyond compare that has tapped all their senses with a lifestyle so different from their home country of England. Charlotte is flourishing as she spends the days when John is at work painting and capturing the colors of all the sights they have seen. Neither imagined that a girls' night out would end in tragedy. How long does a spouse wait for justice? What if there is no justice? What then?

I was first captivated by the descriptive writing that encompassed me in the atmosphere of the setting. It allowed me to feel as though I was personally experiencing the beauty of the landscape in the countryside, hearing the blare of horns as cows were leisurely enjoying life as traffic snarled and snaked around them in the city, smelling and tasting the herbs and spices of delicious cuisine. I also appreciated that every hour or activity is not chronicled in minutiae strengthening and elevating the pace of the storyline.

And from the moment the tragedy unfurled, I was riveted to the page. The event was a shock. As I tried to discern the path of the storyline, I was wrong at every turn. Every. Single. Turn. Isn’t that the highest compliment I can give? For that is compelling reading at its best. I loved it! Now it’s your turn.… (mer)