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Fiction. Romance. Suspense. Christian Fiction. HTML: Police Chief Luke Granger's witness to a murder, Amy Griffin, has been on the run for years. Her family thinks she was murdered eight years ago, but Amy chose to accept a life in the shadows in order to protect her sisters' lives. Now unveiled secrets about their father have thrust the sisters into the public spotlight. The man who wants Amy dead now sees her sisters as the way to locate her. Luke and two of his homicide detectives are determined to stand in the way. They are each falling in love with a different sister, and it's become a personal mission to keep them safe. But chances are that at least one of them will fail, and facing the future will take a faith deeper than any of them currently knows..… (more)
User reviews
The Witness features three sisters and three cops (convienient). Because of what she knows, one sister had to “die” eight years earlier. While
Like the rest of her books, Henderson has written a compelling tale. It grabs you from the first page and threatens not to let go. And then you realize that you’re half-way through the book and the titular character (the witness) has barely made an appearance. In fact the book should have been called “The Sister of the Witness.” There are three sisters, the witness, the one we follow throughout the book, and the college student. This college student has absolutely no character development, but that makes sense as she’s killed three-quarters through the book. When she dies, the readers feels no remorse at all, because she wasn’t treated as an important character. We didn’t know her
Overall, it is a good story. I would recommend it to any of Dee’s fans. I would not use it to encourage new readers, however, as the characters are weak, and the murderer obvious. I knew who they should have been after about 75 pages before they did.
Policeman Luke Granger first meets "Kelly" at the scene of a horrific crime. Startled by her elusiveness, he soon learns her real name is Amanda and that she is on the run after witnessing another killing. When she
Style Characterisics: Pacing, clarity, structure, narrative devices, etc.
Romantic elements abound as not only does Luke pair up with Amanda, but his cop buddies also get to pair up with her sisters. There is also a lot of people dying in this book, two witnessed murders and one of the major characters is killed near the end. Some of the plot elements didn't jive--a woman on the run hiding a house key under a knick-knack on her porch when she is super-careful about everything else? I don't think so! The suspense is right on though, there is plenty of danger and interpersonal conflict to keep the reader turning the pages. The characters also display Christian faith, and show some spiritual struggles, though this wasn't very memorable.
Was this a romance ? .... if so, then I am not sure that is succeeds here either, although it is very convenient that three sisters end up with three police officers the relationships were not well fleshed out and mostly seemed to consist of the men telling the women what to do. There is also one major event which would not have been included in a light romance.
Was it a Christian tale ? .... if so, then it was very patchy. Although most of the characters talk about God, and a few express some disbelief, this was not a major plot element and thus it jarred a bit when it did appear. It almost felt like the author went through the finished novel and added some religious bits here and there to the text without any attempt at blending.
I found this book to have elements of all of the above but to combine them unevenly in a book lacking any pace and character development. I did think that the beginning was really promising and I liked the character of Amy but I thought that any independence and individuality that the women had was wiped out as soon as they came under the protection of the men who rather smothered them. I thought that some sub-plots were imperfectly finished - especially those involving Daniel and Caroline - and I did wonder if there has been a previous book involving some of the main characters as there was a lot of back-story, especially about Caroline and the other police officers, which was alluded to but not made specific.
In conclusion - this book was a bit of a mess all round.