MARLENE SATTER - MOSTLY MYSTERY REVIEWS

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	Marlene Satter is one of FMAM's fiction editors. Making sure copy is in the best possible shape before it sees print has been her job and her mission for years; doing so for FMAM's fine writers is a pleasure.  So is reviewing books to let folks know about all the "good stuff" that's available.

TWISTED PERCEPTION
Bob Avey
Bedside Books, 2005 (paperback), $22.00, 264 pp.
ISBN: 1-58982-271-4

Kenny Elliot is a cop, but once he was a high school football hero under the shadow of a double murder. Most of the folks in his home town still think he did it, although the police chief and others did the best they could to cover it up - but Kenny had left town and never returned after the murders and the case was never solved.

Now, however, the past has reared its ugly head with a vengeance: Elliot's latest case is murder, and the M.O. is hauntingly familiar - a woman in a parked car late at night, a slashed throat, a necklace hanging from the car's mirror. Oh, yes, something Elliot remembers all too well. His friend and his girl, dead; himself a suspect; nothing ever resolved, though the case was deemed a murder/suicide.

As his colleagues begin to wonder whether he had anything to do with this present-day murder and its sequel, then learn about the past case in which he was a suspect, Kenny realizes that he has to go home and confront the past - uncover the truth about the case and about himself. The way is convoluted and dangerous, and Kenny must wonder about his own perceptions of the truth.

Avey has, through switches in viewpoint and a trail of clues, created a suspenseful tale that keeps the reader wondering about the hero even as Kenny wonders about himself and his own motivations. Did he kill Marcia and Johnnie all those years ago? Why did he run out on Carmen? Can his investigation reveal the truth about the past and the present before he himself becomes the next victim? It's a tight read, and will keep readers guessing till the end.

Marlene Satter

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