Review: PLAYING DEAD, by Allison Brennan

[Larry W. Chavis]

PLAYING DEAD
by Allison Brennan
Ballalntine Books, New York
September, 2008
Paperback, 462 pages


Fifteen years ago, police sergeant Tom O’Brien was sentenced to death for the murders of his wife and her lover, an assistant district attorney. The state’s key witness against him was his daughter, Claire, then fourteen, who found him at the scene, bloody and holding the murder weapon.

The thing is, Tom O’Brien was framed. With his execution date four months off, an earthquake allows him to escape from prison and make a last-ditch attempt to prove his innocence.

Claire has spent the years trying to forget her father and move on with her life, becoming a licensed private investigator, working for a top firm, successful in many ways – yet cynical, and convinced everyone is phony. Watched by the FBI for any attempt Tom may make to contact her, Claire is angry, and plans to turn him in should he do so.

The stage is thus well-set for a tale full of suspense, as events turn Claire slowly from her certainty of Tom’s guilt toward belief in his possible innocence. The FBI lays on every resource to recapture Tom, while the conspirators who framed him grow increasingly desperate to kill him, and anyone else who can uncover the frame. Either way, Tom O’Brien is a dead man.

One FBI agent, Mitch Bianchi, has become convinced that Tom is innocent. Charged with his capture, he gets close to Claire under the guise of friendship, hoping to find proof of his theory. Things grow confused as Mitch finds himself falling for Claire, who for the first time in years finds herself willing to trust someone. The emotional dynamite is placed, and its fuse lit. Add into the mix a chilling killer, and you have a book that will keep you turning pages until, all too quickly, it ends.