Murder. Betrayal. Love Gone Wrong
With her ability to present clues without giving away the endings and offering surprising twists encouraging the reader to the next page, D. J. Adamson delves into a family tragedy ending up in murder and a teenage daughter missing. When Lillian Dove finds herself involved in the police investigation, she realizes the daughter holds the key to unravel who killed her mother.
It is three days before Christmas when Lillian Dove comes across Dr. Conrad standing out in front of his house, covered in blood. When going inside the house to help other members of his family, she finds his wife killed, his son seriously injured, and his teenage daughter, Peyton Clayton, missing. Even more shocking, the police suspect Dr. Conrad. Understanding how emotional dilemmas have strained the family emboldens Lillian to help Detective Jacque Leveque, Major Crimes Detective for the Frytown Police Department, find the prime witness to the Conrad truths.
Let Her Go is a nerve-wracking exploration into a family lost, and the extent love elicits both the good and the bad. In this Third Step in Personal Recovery Lillian works to find Peyton Clayton, while battling the worse arctic freeze in Frytown’s history, untangling human frailties, and confronting the ghosts of Christmas.
Writing Male or Female…are they so different?
In the movie, As Good As It Gets, Jack Nicholson’s character is asked: “How do you write women so well?” His character responds, “I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.”
With the Lilian Dove series, I would answer: I take away the ability to demonstrate emotional honesty and the inability to accept failure.
Hold it! I think that is Lillian’s point of view as well.
Jacque Leveque, Detective of Major Crimes, is thought as a “player.” He and Lillian send out both sparks and explosives on their first meeting. Jacque asks Lillian to go out for a drink after barely meeting her.
Lillian, thinking he only wants one more notch on his belt, answers: “If you were the last man on earth and we were stuck on an island with no other land in sight, I’d put stones in my pocket and take a swim first.” Of course, she could have just said, “No thank you.” But Lillian, like Jacque, lacks emotional honesty in herself, so how can she offer it to someone else?
Lillian is attracted to Jacque, yet she doesn’t trust herself with him. She wants a different life than she has known, and she thinks being with Jacque will bring on trouble. Jacque is also very attracted to Lillian, but he’s not one for making commitments. He feels that showing Lillian, or anyone for that matter, who the real Jacque Leveque is will make him vulnerable. Funny, by Lillian’s lack of honesty and her flair for being contrary, she ends up getting into trouble, both by jumping into catching a murderer or becoming involved with a man that she feels is safe. And Jacque continues to play a cat and mouse game, finding Lillian very capable in following clues, but wanting to keep her out of “his cases” because he might end up getting too close.
It’s never as easy as a man-woman thing, is it?
D. J. Adamson is an award-winning author for both her mystery novels and her science fiction novel. She is the editor of Le Coeur de l’Artiste, a newsletter which reviews books, and a blog, L’Artiste with offers authors the venue to write on craft, marketing, and the creative mind. D.J. teaches writing and literature, and to keep busy when she is not writing or teaching, she has been a board member of Sisters in Crime Los Angeles and Sisters in Crime Central Coast, a member of the Southern California Mystery Writers Organization, California Writers Club and Greater Los Angeles Writer’s Society. Her books can be found and purchased in bookstores and on Amazon.
