"Secrets of Eden"

Author: Chris Bohjalian
Genre: Mystery/Thriller
Publisher: Crown Publishing Group, 2010
Pages: 384
My Rating: Do Not Recommend.

For having been written by a critically acclaimed, best selling author, Secrets of Eden was disappointing to say the least.

Synopsis (from book jacket): Reverend Stephen Drew finds his faith in God beginning to falter after his parishioner Alice Hayward is murdered by her husband only hours after her baptism. Drew finds solace and more from Heather Laurent, the author of a series of inspirational books on angels whose parents also died in a grisly murder-suicide. The riveting premise turns takes a thrilling swerve when clues begin to appear that Alice's husband, thought to have killed himself, may still be alive.

Review: After an extremely slow start this book gradually improved. However, I finished it feeling as though I'd just been taken on a wild goose chase and had wasted my time. Part of me would like to read another book by this author, but part of me isn't sure I could ever bring myself to actually do it. Maybe in a year or two.

I would argue that the person who wrote the synopsis did not read the book. At no point did anyone suggest Alice's husband wasn't dead. I think the gory description of what had to be cleaned up following the murder-suicide is proof of that. The whole premise of the book is "was it murder-suicide" or "something else"? I just expected so much more from a critically acclaimed author. Very disappointing.