Reviewer & Author Interviewer, Norm Goldman. Norm is the Publisher & Editor of Bookpleasures.com.
He has been reviewing books for the past twenty years after retiring from the legal profession.
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Author: JP O'Donnell
Publisher: Outskirts Press
ISBN:
978-1-9772-0177-5
Pulse Of My Heart,
the third in JP O'Donnell's Gallagher Series,
once again features Daniel Cormac Gallagher Jr. who appears to have
nine lives. O'Donnell combines a titillating organized thriller plot
with a fearless hard-boiled tough character, who danger is his middle
name.
The novel unfolds with a Prologue
where we read about Don Kraemer who is jogging alone along a dirt
path of the Wabash Heritage Trail in Indiana. Don is viciously
attacked by a dog that almost kills him. The dog's owner comes to the
rescue and apologizes giving the excuse that the dog, who is named
Caesar, broke off from his leash and he was unable to retrieve him as
the animal was far too fast for him.
The owner offers Don a
gold necklace for his trouble, but an angry Don refuses to accept it.
All he asks for is the name of the dog's veterinarian. The owner
agrees to give Don his name and phone number and inserts the
information into Don's cell phone. Don does not realize, however,
that the owner is entering a fake name and phone number and thus
begins our yarn.
As the narrative takes shape, we find our
protagonist, Gallagher longing for the companionship of his lost love
and ex-wife, Kathryn Daisy McSurdy who left him eight months ago.
Gallagher is a Boston private detective who is married to his
profession and Kate had enough of his dangerous assignments which not
only placed him in some near-death situations but also included her
in some of these adventures.
Gallagher receives a distressing
phone call from Kate's father, Bob McSurdy, who tells him that Kate
has abruptly disappeared and he is afraid something has happened to
her. Within an hour Gallagher meets with Bob who tells him that two
weeks ago Kate telephoned him and his wife indicating to them that
she had to make a trip to Indiana to see his niece, Cindy who had
just lost her husband Don. Yes, the Don mentioned in the prologue who
had been bitten by the dog. However, the cause of death was some
acute infection that overtook his body. There is no mention of a
vicious dog bite.
Gallagher is dumbfounded to hear about
Cindy as Kate never mentioned her to him. And what throws Gallagher
for a loop is that Bob reveals to him that Kate had a baby and that
Cindy and Don had adopted the baby. Kate had been living for four
years with an ex-football player, Matt Winston, who had abused and
raped her. She broke off with Winston without revealing to him that
he had impregnated her.
Until the novel's final brief
chapters, O'Donnell pulls out all the stops, repeatedly blindsiding
his readers with shifts and turns. What we have is a criminal plot
involving a local news media icon, police corruption, drugs, multiple
murders, a missing child whose parents died mysteriously, an
unbalanced ex-lover who is determined to find the mother of his
child, the mystery surrounding the disappearance of an ex-wife, and a
shootout at a miniature horse farm. No doubt, the novel has all the
elements of tragedy and gossip that the public loves to devour.
And
what stands out is O'Donnell's perfect sense of timing as he delivers
all the cliffhangers and hairpin turns that you would come to expect
from a well-constructed thriller. Although, in the real world we
would probably pause to question the yarns' rapid conclusion, yet, in
the world of Gallagher, we know better.
One
final thought, if you need to escape from your everyday drudgery,
this may be the novel that so effectively hits the spot and where you
can easily spend an afternoon flaked out on the couch with this fast
read.
FOLLOW HERE TO READ NORM'S INTERVIEW WITH JP O'DONNELL