Customer Reviews

Sliver of Truth: A Novel

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(17)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Everyone else has summarized this story so I won't get into the content of the book. I was debating in the beginning if I should continue reading this. It was a very slow and somewhat confusing start. Then suddenly--Bang----it went into full speed ahead and twisted around corners with a lot of fast paced excitement. I was rooting for Ridley and Jake, then for the FBI agent, Dylan Grace and hoping Max was really a "good" guy. But things kept changing. It's not a book to do power reading or fast skimming. You must read every line or you'll miss some of the action. Honest. And you don't want to miss any of this action----up until the very end.
Pour yourself a glass of wine, sit back and enjoy every word. It's a great read-----a fun ride.

After a harrowing year of unexpected revelations that turn her life inside out, Ridley Jones is still adjusting to her new reality. The relationship that has served as her emotional support is crumbling, affection turning too often into heated exchanges. Jake, the handsome sculptor who came on the scene just when she needed him most, is bedeviled by his own issues, obsessed with his own need to come to terms with a harrowing past. Ridley has learned that she is a Project Rescue Baby, a child given up by a mother who could not protect her; but there is more to the stories of such victims, a dark side that hints of helpless children removed from unsafe families and sold to wealthy ones, a bartering of lives for profit. For Ridley, this information has been cataclysmic, her parents not her parents, her real father dead in a tragic accident.

As a freelance writer, Ridley has an innate curiosity about people and their hidden agendas, but she also has a disastrous love affair with denial and a strong streak of stubbornness that is the occasion of more than one life-threatening encounter. At loose ends after a shocking series of violent events, Ridley is slowly coming to terms with the impossibility of her relationship to Jake, although the physical attraction is still irresistible. Just as she is reclaiming herself and a changed identity markedly different from the one of her youth, the FBI appears, looking for answers to questions Ridley cannot bear to entertain. Is her real father still alive? Was his death a sham? And is he, in spite of her memories, more monster than man?

Overwhelmed by too much information, Ridley is torn between needing to know the terrible secrets of the past and her increasing desperation to deny the ugly truth. Unfortunately, she doesn't get a choice; it seems there are a number of nefarious individuals who are asking the same questions, but with a far different intent. Suddenly the world is filled with menace, Ridley unsure who to trust. Events spiral out of control, Ridley both the pursuer and the pursued, barely one step ahead of the law and the lawless. Her challenge is to gather whatever information yields results in a nerve-wracking quest to learn the fate of her real father, knowing this knowledge will bring a terrible truth that she cannot bear to face or escape.

A sequel to Beautiful Lies, in which this whole nightmare is partly revealed, Sliver of Truth suffers some of the same problems: Ridley's over dramatization of every aspect of her life and an irritating inability to deal with the moment without sabotaging her own best interests, not to mention romancing a grotesque figure. Still, overall, both novels work well, Unger writing with a kind of jagged energy that both frustrates and fascinates, her protagonist driven to go on in spite of the flashing red lights. In a framework riddled with unsavory people, untrustworthy friends, technological advances in communication and a criminal society that trades in innocent victims, the bodies are piling up. Ridley can't figure out why she's left standing. Unless, of course, her father is alive and she's the bait. Luan Gaines/2007.

Jake's sexier than ever, and now he has competition from Dylan Grace. Ridley's still a little too self-pitying but ultimately resourceful and clever. She keeps stumbling into the middle of adventure allegedly against her will and then seems all too unwilling to turn things over to the "proper authorities," which sometimes strains credulity. But Lisa Unger has a great, compelling style that makes this book a fast, fun read. I was a little disappointed at how much of the plot turned out to be a rehash of "Beautiful Lies" - we're still obsessing over the evil adoption ring and there's more bad stuff about Ridley's real dad. I would have preferred to see Ridley dealing with some mystery outside her own orbit, but maybe she'll get a little less self-absorbed in the third book. There's a surprising twist about Jake that creates a lot of wonderful angsty scenes between the two of them. Despite his revelation, I'm still hoping to see more of him in Book Three - assuming there'll be one.

Ever since I read her debut* novel, Beautiful Lies: A Novel, I have been a big fan of author Lisa Unger. BL was the first book in this trilogy and I hoped this second one, Sliver of Truth: A Novel, would be just as riveting.

Unger did not disappoint me! She proceeds with the intriguing story of Ridley Jones's search for her father without a hitch; same ease in writing with a voice so smooth it lulls you into the story with ease. Unger has discovered her true voice and I, for one, am convinced she will go far in the literary field.

Like the first book, Sliver of Truth: A Novel has everything: high drama, exciting action, likable, believable protagonists, and villains you love to hate. Not only is Unger great with dialog, she's a master at pacing the action, and her plot is quite original.

I held my breath, wondering if Ridley ever finds her father? Was her Uncle Max really her father? And was he dead, as she believed, or very much alive as everyone else believed? What did the FBI have to do with Uncle Max? The Armenian mob? And why did everyone want him? How did they use Ridley for their own purposes? And when everyone who attempted to help her ended up dead, how did our feisty heroine fight back?

Doesn't that sound like a winner? A blockbuster of a story? Well, it is! It's a riveting tale of intrigue that I couldn't put down, and I bet you won't be able to, either ... until you learn the answers to those questions for yourself.

* Technically, I feel that Beautiful Lies: A Novel should not have been billed as a "debut" novel, since Unger had written several other novels under a different name. In all fairness, though, there could be New York "industry standards" that apply to situations like this, standards of which I'm not aware and that could have a legal bearing on what's permissible and what isn't. However, that has nothing to do with the quality of this author's writing; this is still a "must read" trilogy.

"Double feints and triple suspense plays . . . make Sliver of Truth: A Novel compulsive reading.-- New York Daily News

Reviewed by: Betty Dravis, 2008
author of 1106 Grand Boulevard

I'm impressed someone could write a suspensful, well thought out novel in this day and age. I was hooked from beginning to end. Ridley's character was one I could sink myself in. The twist and turns in this novel are suprising and well thought out. I'm not going to outline the plot (I personally hate that about reviews), I just want to give this a five star rating. I'm getting picky in my old age as to what is enjoyable to read and this is a great one!

Sliver of Truth is Lisa Unger's second thriller starring Ridley Jones, a New York feature writer (not a journalist - there's a difference!) discovering the murky truth about her happy family background. Ridley loves an adventure, especially if it's life-threatening. She steps blithely over the mounting corpses and barges headlong into every obvious trap, led by her insatiable curiosity, and finds herself betrayed, kidnapped, shot at, and simultaneously investigated by the NYPD, the FBI, the CIA and Scotland Yard. Oh, and she falls in love.
Sliver of Truth goes all out for every clichéd effect available. It's not as fast-paced as it might be, since there's a certain amount of reflection of the `I-don't-know-who-I-am-any-more' variety, but it's still a page-turner, and a New York setting is always fun. I haven't read Unger's first book, Beautiful Lies, but I would suggest that if you're going to, you should read it before this one because this is definitely a sequel: most of what's gone on before is explained here. The characters are mainly cardboard cut-outs, and the writing's competent but nothing extraordinary. In short, you'll like Sliver of Truth if it's the sort of thing you like.

Here `tis - the eagerly awaited sequel to Lisa Unger's debut thriller "Beautiful Lies," and it's another corker. Protagonist Ridley Jones, whom we first met last year in "Beautiful Lies," had hoped to go on with a somewhat normal life - as normal as life can be for one whose face graced front pages after she saved the life of a toddler - but that is not to be, not even close.

We hear, "I bet you thought you'd heard the end of me. You might have at least hoped that I'd had my fill of drama for one lifetime and that the road ahead of me would not hold any more surprises, that things would go pretty smoothly from now on. Believe me, I thought so, too. We were both wrong."

Ridley's boyfriend, Jake, has moved out of the apartment they shared and the two of them have tried various ways to reconnect without a great deal of success. One might have thought a trip to Paris would do the trick! As if this breach in their relationship were not enough, Ridley has discovered that the man she thought of as Uncle Max is actually her biological father. Although Max is now dead, she's in the position of trying to "recast" her uncle as her father.

Max had played a pivotal part in the development of Project Rescue, an organization devoted to getting the Safe Haven Law passed in New York State. Under this law mothers are allowed to abandon their children at specified Safe Haven sites if their children are abused or the mothers fear they will be. As with so many thing there's an up side and a down side to Project Rescue. It seems that some doctors and nurses have been selecting certain children they think will be victims of abuse, then in cooperation with criminals abducting them and selling them to well-to-do parents. Myra Lyall, a reporter for the Times, was covering this story - until she was murdered.

Ridley has picked up some photos that she and Jake had taken recently - in Paris, in Central Park. The photos reveal more than she remembers - there's a murky figure in almost all of them. It's a familiar figure, one she identifies as Max. How could this be when he is dead?

Broadway, television and film actress Jenna Lamia does a dynamite job of vivifying Ridley with all of her fears, suspicions, and bravado. She effectively captures a range of emotions in an estimable voice performance.

- Gail Cooke

This is the follow-up to Lisa Unger's first novel, Beautiful Lies. I absolutely loved Beautiful Lies. It was fast-paced, the plot was intriguing, the ending was good and the characters were interesting, relatable and complex. This book was good but not quite as good as the first one. The plot sort of explodes onward from where it left off in Beautiful Lies and becomes a little bit unruly. Also, the book was a little heavy on the foreshadowing of future plot points. That said, it was very enjoyable to read and I zipped through it very quickly. I just picked up her third book, Black Out, which is not a continuation of the first two, and am looking forward to reading it.

I really enjoyed this, though there were a few things that really bugged me. Like the way the author uses the word crumble in place of the word crumple. She does this in Beautiful Lies, too. Also don't understand why Ridley just accepts that Max is her father with no evidence other than him saying so. Someone else claimed to be her father, too, and there was no reason for her or the readers to think he wasn't. Between that and the other unanswered questions from the first book, I could've been a lot more satisfied with this book. That being said, it was a good read once it got going, though I don't know if I'd recommend buying it at full price.

Not as good as the first one but definitely worth reading. It's really well written, the story line is just a little too far fetched.