Fallen [Kindle Edition]

Kathleen George (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With its excess of mundane details and paucity of action, George’s second novel (after Taken) is more likely to lull readers to sleep than keep them up until the wee hours of the morning. The Pittsburgh police are baffled by the murder of pediatrician and philanthropist Dan Ross. According to Dan’s widow, Elizabeth, he had no enemies, which leaves detective Richard Christie with few leads. While Richard investigates the murky circumstances surrounding the long-ago death of Dan’s best friend, Elizabeth seeks refuge in the arms of her new next door neighbor, Frank Razzi, a widower and part-time college professor. It’s clear from the start that there’s something shady about Frank, and the story’s sole suspense lies in anticipating his motives and his connection to Dan’s past. Although some readers will appreciate the rich character portraits George paints with painstaking detail, others will grow impatient waiting for the story to shift out of neutral.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Product Description

It happened in the night, when no one was around to see it. A Pittsburgh doctor, who dedicated himself to helping others, was shot through the heart. Now days have passed, and Dan Ross’s wife, Elizabeth, has entered a twilight zone of grief, flooded with memories, voices, and regrets. And while a determined police investigator is feverishly following a trail of mystery back into her husband’s squeaky-clean past, a new neighbor suddenly moves in to the house next door and begins watching every move Elizabeth makes…watching her children come to visit…watching her acts of private grief and public dignity. This man, this stranger to the city, is fascinated by Elizabeth’s sorrow. And he knows exactly who killed her husband and why.

But he isn’t in the business of telling truths. He simply wants to know her. He wants to take her in his arms. He wants to know she has fallen just for him.


From the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 552 KB
• Print Length: 400 pages
• Publisher: Dell (December 18, 2008)
• Sold by: Random House Digital, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001O1O6MW
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #299,377 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

More About the Author

Kathleen George is the best selling author of a series of thrillers set in Pittsburgh where she lives and where she is a professor of theatre at the University of Pittsburgh. Her fifth novel HIDEOUT (August 16, 2001) has won high praise already. Her fourth, THE ODDS, just now out in paperback, was a finalist for an Edgar® award for best novel of the year in 2010. She is also the author of the acclaimed novels TAKEN, FALLEN, and AFTERIMAGE, the short story collection THE MAN IN THE BUICK, and the 2011 edited collection of stories, PITTSBURGH NOIR. Early on George Pelecanos wrote "I look forward to reading anything Kathleen George writes." An Entertainment Weekly reviewer wrote of THE ODDS, "If anyone is writing better police thrillers than George, I don't know who it is."

She is married to writer Hilary Masters, who asked her out twenty years ago because he figured she, a theatre director, would be interesting--he was tired of being around writers. On the first date, she told him she had begun writing (or more accurately had taken it up again, having said from the time she was seven that she wanted to be a writer).

He thought, "Oh, no, not another one." But they had already hit it off and so it was too late. Now there are two of them in one household, shuffling around in sloppy clothes, coffee cups in hand, heading to paper, computer, typewriter.

"When I was eight, I took my accumulated miseries up to the attic," she wrote in "The Making of a Writer" "where I had discovered I could make an area, (a small stage set?) with table, chair, notebooks and pen, and suddenly my world seemed whole and good--a secret and a treasure."




*******Detailed media bio and photos:

Kathleen George was born in Johnstown Pennsylvania. As a child, she wanted to be a writer. She wrote stories and plays in high school and in her undergraduate years as a creative writing major at the University of Pittsburgh. She went on to earn a Ph.D. in Theatre (also at Pitt). By then she had made her home in Pittsburgh. For eight years she taught theatre at Carlow College, where she directed many plays. Then she accepted a teaching position at Pitt where she continued to direct and teach dramatic literature and playwriting; in the early 80s, she began to add fiction writing back into the mix. In 1988, she earned an M.F.A. degree in Creative Writing (also at Pitt!) on the side. She is a Professor in the Theatre Arts Department.

Book-length fiction publications are: THE MAN IN THE BUICK, a collection of stories, BKMK press, 1999; TAKEN, a novel, Delacorte 2001; FALLEN, Dell 2004; AFTERIMAGE, St. Martin's Minotaur 2007; and THE ODDS, St. Martin's Minotaur 2009. TAKEN has been translated into French, German, Japanese, Dutch, Danish, and Norwegian. In August of 2011, HIDEOUT, a fifth novel, will launch. She is also the editor of the 2011 PITTSBURGH NOIR.

George has been granted fellowships at artists' colonies, including the VCCA and MacDowell. Her short fiction has appeared in journals and magazines which include Mademoiselle, Cimarron Review, North American Review, New Letters, and Alaska Quarterly Review. She has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize and one story was listed among the Distinguished in Best American Short Stories.

Her theatre publications are: Rhythm in Drama, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1980, Playwriting: The First Workshop, Allworth Press, 2008 (first in print with Butterworth (Focal Press) 1994), and Winter's Tales: Reflections on the Novelistic Stage, University of Delaware, 2005.

She has taught for Pitt in London and has served as faculty and as Academic Dean for Semester at Sea. She has directed for Pitt's mainstage and for the Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival productions which include The Rehearsal, The Country Wife, She Stoops to Conquer, The Winter's Tale, Hamlet, Much Ado About Nothing, King Lear, A Flea in Her Ear, and Our Town. A number of these productions were listed among the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette's Ten Best of the Year. She has also produced and sometimes directed over sixty original plays written by her students.

She is married to writer Hilary Masters.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I've FALLEN for this book!, September 17, 2004

By 

Book Geek (Los Angeles, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fallen (Mass Market Paperback)

I am a fan of Kathleen's first novel, Taken, so I anxiously awaited her second novel. I was wary at first that it may not live up to my expectations, but after the first few pages the story sucked me in.

I'm not going to write about what the book was about since some of the other reviewers already offered plot summaries. I'll just get to the main point.

The book don't offer flimsy characters like some of the other thrillers out there. These characters breathe and get under your skin. Even after I closed the book, I could "see" Frank and Elizabeth.

I spent countless late-nights reading, trying to figure out what Frank was going to do next!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Psychological Thriller, October 3, 2004

By 

Avid Reader (Columbia, MD) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Fallen (Mass Market Paperback)

I found this novel gripping and I could not put it down. Character development is excellent.

The author gives you a brutal crime, then takes you into the troubled mind of the murderer as he plans, schemes, and lies to achieve his ultimate goal. You are forced to understand him while hating him.

You truly feel the pain and suffering of the victim's spouse. Then you are faced with anxiety and fear as she confronts an unknown danger who is just steps away.

5.0 out of 5 stars FALLEN, October 1, 2004

By 

T. Smith (Glendale, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Fallen (Mass Market Paperback)

For those interested in good writing and an artfully told tale, I recommend Kathleen George's "Fallen." Its depth of characterization raises it above the pure murder mystery genre. I found it a page-turner and will probably return to read it again. If you appreciate good writing and love a well-spun mystery - this is the book for you.