Lost Innocents [Mass Market Paperback]

Patricia MacDonald (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1999

Maddy Blake is a wife, a mom, and a stained-glass artist who is just getting over a very bad year. Her husband Doug, a high school teacher, has been acquitted of sexual misconduct with a student, but the trial has left the Blakes depleted of their finances and their self respect. When a 15-year-old babysitter turns up dead and the toddler she was watching is nowhere to be found, all eyes look to Doug. Plagued by doubts of Doug's innocence and intrigued by a priest for whom her feelings are anything but spiritual, Maddy is all too preoccupied with her efforts to keep her life from falling apart, and realizes too late that she is in mortal danger.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Mothers and children are the emotional fulcrum of thriller veteran MacDonald's well-plotted but shallow latest (after Secret Admirer). Six-month-old Justin Wallace and his teenage baby-sitter are abducted from a small-town park; the police find the baby-sitter's body in the woods, but baby Justin's fate is unclear. Meanwhile, high-school teacher Doug Blake has just been exonerated of sexually harassing the daughter of the local police chief, but his compulsive attraction to his teenage charges threatens the happiness of his wife, Maddy, and their small daughter. Soon witnesses place Doug at the scene of the abduction. Is the police chief simply carrying out a vendetta against Doug? Or does Doug know more than he admits? Maddy battles a dangerous attraction to her charismatic priest, Father Nick, as she tries to hold her world together. Other suspects include a childless, middle-aged woman obsessed with the death of her son and a sinister born-again couple who move into the Blakes' house after a minor car accident and arouse Maddy's suspicions: Could their beautiful child be Justin Wallace? Maddy's knowledge puts her into a perilous situation from which only Father Nick can save her. Despite this competent sequence of events, the novel suffers from MacDonald's superficial insight into characters, and the happy ending to Maddy's tribulations is all-too predictable.

Copyright 1998 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; Reprint edition (November 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446607592
• ISBN-13: 978-0446607599
• Product Dimensions: 4.3 x 1 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,332,838 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Suspense at its best, September 5, 2000

By 

K. Lininger (FOUNTAIN VALLEY, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Lost Innocents (Hardcover)

A teenager and the baby she was babysitting disappear. Oh God, nothing could be more scary than that except finding the teenager dead and the baby is still missing.... This book taps the fear every mother in the world has..a child missing. Maddy Blake is the mother of a 3 year old daughter and married to a self centered husband. After getting in a car accident with another car, Maddy felt responsible to help out and invited the victims in the other car to stay at her house. A mother and her 6 month old son stay with Maddy while the mother's husband is still in the hospital. While this is going on other plots are twisting and turning. Maddy's husband gets accused of seducing one of his students and worse the police think he might be a part of the baby and babysitter's kidnapping. All the characters in the book all are related to the storyline and the climax ties together all the stories to make for a good ending.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Don't read this alone at night, May 2, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost Innocents (Hardcover)

High school teacher Doug Blake, Maddy's spouse and Amy's father, has been cleared of all charges of sexual misconduct brought by a student. Throughout the ordeal, Maddy stayed by her man because she refused to believe any of the ugly accusations. After a celebration dinner, Maddy is involved in a car accident in which the other driver Terry Lewis is hospitalized. Maddy invites the Lewis family to stay with her to save on expenses.

The local police chief thinks Doug is the killer of a fifteen-year-old girl and kidnapper of a smaller child. Maddy initially thinks it is harassment because the chief's daughter is the student who originally pressed sexual harassment charges against her spouse. However, she begins to wonder if her faith in Doug is false and he could indeed be guily of hitting sexually on his students or something even more horrific(like murder and kidnapping). Patricia MacDonald has written a suspense filled thriller that is similar to the best of Mary Higgins Clark and Barbara Michaels. LOST INNOCENTS is a passionate melodrama loaded with tension and much cleverly deployed misdirection. All readers will come away from this book feeling satisfied with its potent story line, frightened with its reality base, and anxious for Ms. MacDonald's next tale.

Patricia MacDonald has written a suspense filled thriller that is similar to the best of Mary Higgins Clark and Barbara Michaels. LOST INNOCENTS is a passionate melodrama loaded with tension and much cleverly deployed misdirection. All readers will come away from this book feeling satisfied with its potent story line, frightened with its reality base, and anxious for Ms. MacDonald's next tale.

Harriet Klausner

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read..., November 22, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Lost Innocents (Hardcover)

The book does not drag, has a sufficient # of characters without being overwhelming and the plot is not overly complex. I stop short of giving it 5 stars only because of 1 overlooked detail (that of blood without giving too much away). This overlooked detail does not invalidate the suspenseful plot and its resulting finale. This was my first read of this author and I was not at all disappointed. It was also nice to see my home province of Nova Scotia mentioned in the novel.