Author: Dwayne Murray, Sr.

ISBN: 0976985500

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Dwayne Murray. Sr.’s debut novel The Mouse That Roared recounts the story of Sandra Lyte, a fine-looking young woman from Virginia who enters a beauty pageant against the strong objections of her father, who is a church minister. After Sandra wins the pageant and three thousand dollars, her parents are appalled and kick her out of their home and disown her. Sandra is left to fend for herself and moves to New York City. Unfortunately, when Sandra attempts to cash her prize money, she discovers that she had been duped as the cheque turns out to be a fraud.

While living in New York, Sandra meets Doug Gunner, whom she falls madly in love with and eventually moves in with him. Sandra is unaware that Doug is not an investor, as he would have her believe, but rather a drug dealer who is in the habit of bribing several members of the New York police force in exchange for their protection. Moreover, he is the product of an abusive father and thinks nothing of mimicking his father’s behavior in physically and mentally abusing his wife and two children.  His life is one of lies and deceit-in reality he can be described as a person who epitomizes evil.

Doug is also quite crafty in a devious way when it comes to protecting his own interests as he makes sure to secretly film all of the illicit activities between himself and some members of the police force including sexual orgies that he was instrumental in providing for them. Literally catching them with their pants down! As we shall discover, these tapings will eventually play a pivotal role in the plot.

What is ironic about Doug is notwithstanding that he had been badly abused during his childhood by his father, he still supports his father in grand style and even in his adulthood continues to fear him- probably causing him to redirect his anger towards Sandra and his children.

Doug also succumbs to an abundance of greed and when he oversteps the boundary and murders the son of a Mafia boss, he seems to be under the false impression that he is immune from all recrimination.

The Mouse That Roared is somewhat of a psychological horror novel. The husband who is mentally unbalanced with a great deal of pent up anger and the wife who is subjected to countless beatings at the hands of her grotesque husband, yet constantly struggling with herself  in believing that she is weak and undeserving of a better life. Both are products of an unhappy childhood, yet both react in different ways, until finally Sandra realizes that in order to survive she must follow the path of vengeance.

This is a superior thriller with some ghastly scenes and events that have an icy clarity that can be rough on a reader.  Although the novel is not without flaws and it may not win a prize for its literary attributes, it certainly will certainly keep you sweating until the last page.