ALONE.

ALONE by LISA GARDNER.

An armed man has barricaded himself in with his wife and child. Through the scope of his sniper rifle, State Trooper Bobby Dodge watches the hostage stand-off enfold - and has only a split second to react ........ Twenty-five years ago, Catherine Gagnon was buried underground during a nightmare of abduction and abuse. Now her husband has been killed and her father-in-law, Judge James Gagnon, blames Catherine.

What brings Bobby and Catherine together is a moment of violence - but what connects them is for more dangerous. A killer is loose - and no one will see death coming until it has them cornered, helpless, and alone .......
...... Outer back cover.

FIRST SENTENCE (Chapter 1): He'd put in a fifteen-hour shift the night the call came in.

MEMORABLE MOMENT (Page 175): They're gonna bring in your family. Were you a violent child, did you always love guns? They're going to dig into your lifestyle - young, single officer. Do you frequent bars, sleep around, get into brawls? Too bad you're not married with kids, it always looks better if you're married with kids. What about a dog? Do you happen to own a cute dog? A black lab or golden retriever would be perfect.

KEEP IT OR NOT?: Without a shadow of a doubt I'll be keeping this.

Oh my goodness, one of the best books I've read this year and certainly one of the cleverest.

Alone is wonderfully multi-layered, a real page turner, I was totally engrossed from page one. Bloody in places its true but this is nevertheless more of a psychological thriller than anything else.

Suspenseful and full of a gathering menace, Alone questions the rights and wrongs of the fateful evening when Dodge is called out to the Gagnon household, to just what extent a mother would go to protect her child, a husband to protect his wife, whilst looking at just how earlier childhood experiences may affect the decisions made by the characters as adults.

And talking of characters ...... brilliantly written, each and every one of them is, to some extent or other, flawed and damaged by life. Not always easy to tell the 'goodies' from the baddies' I loved the way the story unravelled in ways that were, for the most part, totally unexpected leaving the reader with an ending that, though it was full of unanswered questions, did not disappoint.

The 109th read for my 100+ Reading Challenge. Alone, which was passed on to me after being read by my mam, is a great read that we both highly recommend.