Book Review

MAGGIE'S MAN

By Lisa Gardner (writing as Alicia Scott)

Alicia Scott...Lisa Gardner...the name doesn’t matter. What does is the magic between the covers of this novel. And that’s what Gardner/Scott writes.

Maggie, a meek, redheaded twenty-seven-year-old woman is duty bound to honor her calling to serve as juror. But instead, ends up being kidnapped by Cain, a convicted murderer, who is there at the courthouse to defend himself pro se. After knocking out a guard, he steals the guard’s clothes, a truck, and Maggie. He binds her to him with the handcuffs he steals from the guard and makes a run for it.

He doesn’t expect meek and mild Maggie to put up a fight and she doesn’t; at least not a physical one. Drawing upon her knowledge and experience of being a marriage counselor, she uses simple morality to turn Cain into someone he never dreamed he’d become.

Whether it be Stockholm Syndrome or just plain loneliness, Maggie begins to believe Cain and everything he tells her. As she fights for her sanity and safety, she begins to see not everything is just in the world and Cain’s cause may just be an injustice.

I was captivated from page one until the end by Cain and Maggie’s stories. And at the culmination, which is typical of romantic suspense, I cheered on Maggie’s heroics and Cain’s desperate entreaty to be seen as someone other than a convicted murderer, and was thrilled when love won out. But what is atypical is Gardner/Scott’s ability to pen an entrancing tale of fanaticism mixed with gripping suspense and love. Well done and I absolutely recommend this book.

Reviewed by Starr Gardinier, author of “The Other Side: Melinda’s Story”