Shiny Water - Hardcover

Salter, Anna

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671003100 ISBN 13: 9780671003104

Publisher: Atria, 1997

Synopsis

Working on a difficult child custody case in which a father is suspected of molesting his two small children, a forensic psychologist doubts her instincts when the children are murdered in their mother's house after the father is awarded custody. A first novel.

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Forensic psychologist Michael Stone is a supposedly neutral expert in child abuse who's just testifying in Sharon Southworth's custody suit against her husband. And it's a good thing she's not Sharon's hired gun, because Sharon is the client from hell--a paranoid hysteric who wouldn't stand a chance of getting her children away from their father, a successful thoracic surgeon, if both Adrienne and Andrew weren't clearly alleging that daddy had been playing doctor with them. Even that revelation, in fact, isn't enough to turn the tide: Dr. Nathan Southworth ends up getting custody of both kids just in time for them to get murdered, smothered, and laid out neatly on the beds Sharon's kept for them at her place. The cops tag Sharon for the killings when they find a highly pertinent leaf torn from Michael's copy of Toni Morrison's Beloved mounted in Sharon's diary, and Michael's reputation as an expert witness seems doomed--unless she teases another molester, a Hannibal Lecter wannabe named Alex B. Willy, into venturing out of his cell into a visiting room to give her creepy hints about what the few clues in the case really mean. Michael, a southerner transplanted to Vermont whose fetish is to own no more than 250 objects at once, is fascinating when she talks about the pitfalls of examining children. As the main detective in this thinly imagined debut, though, she poses no threat to Kay Scarpetta or Clarice Starling. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

Michael Stone is a forensic psychologist, a specialist in court-related child abuse and domestic violence cases. A North Carolina native, she is an unusual figure in the Vermont town she now inhabits: a blond, blue-eyed loner who plays basketball obsessively to relieve stress and makes a game of never owning more than 250 things at any one time. Called to testify in a sensational custody case involving charges of sexual abuse, she advocates for the two small children only to be ignored. The abrupt closure of the case feels wrong to Michael, but she is powerless until the children are sadistically murdered. Pulled into the search for the killer, Michael is armed with only a clue involving Toni Morrison's classic novel Beloved. In this debut novel, forensic psychologist Salter has graced her protagonist with a compelling and likable voice in the tradition of Patricia Cornwell. Recommended for most public libraries.?Susan A. Zappia, Maricopa Cty. Lib. Dist., Phoenix
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0671003100
• ISBN 13: 9780671003104
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272