Single Stone, A [Hardcover]

Marilyn Wallace (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1991

Three years after the murder of her daughter and her acquittal for the crime, Linda Orett becomes the police's number one suspect again when another child is murdered under the same circumstances as those of her own daughter. Reprint. LJ. PW. K.

--This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The opening chapter of Wallace's new mystery is so much like the one in Mary Higgins Clark's Where Are the Children? that readers may experience an unsettling sense of deja vu. But they will soon be relieved to find that this well-crafted narrative has surprises of its own. When Linda Orett's young daugther, Amy, was stabbed to death, Linda was tried for the crime and acquitted on a technicality. Linda and her husband Matt have been hiding out in the California backwoods ever since, slowly rebuilding their lives and trying to conquer the grief that threatened their marriage and Linda's very sanity. Now, three years later, another child has been found murdered in the same grisly fashion Amy was--a doll, its torso slashed with an "X," beside her ruined body. Soon enough, yet another child turns up missing. Realizing that it is only a matter of time until the authorities track them down, Linda and Matt--each in their own distinct ways--set out to solve these new crimes before they are accused of them, as well. Wallace, 1986 recipient of The Mystery Readers of America Macavity award for best first novel ( A Case of Loyalties ), cleverly and poignantly leads the Orettes through their paces toward a chilling denouement.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

A little girl is brutally stabbed once in the heart and left dead, a doll beside the body with an x carved into its torso. The mother, Linda Crell, is put on trial for the murder and is acquitted. Three years later, another little girl dies, apparently by the same hand, and for Linda the nightmare returns. Her husband is behaving suspiciously, and the police want her for questioning in connection with the disappearance of a second little girl. Although character development is not quite what one would hope, Wallace turns up the heat on her narrative almost imperceptibly throughout until suddenly it boils--leaving the reader emotionally exhausted. More fun than Mary Higgins Clark, this one is too good to miss. For most popular fiction collections.
- Bettie Spivey Cor mier, Charlotte-Mecklenburg P.L., Charlotte, N.C.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 292 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (October 1, 1991)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385421184
• ISBN-13: 978-0385421188
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,994,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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