[.ca] Dead Ringer (ISBN 0974524638)

He Thought He'd Killer Her, but Now She's Alive Again:
Maggie Nesbitt is accosted in a Southern California supermarket by a big man who seems a little slow, but before she has time to worry, a weaselly looking guy apologizes for his brother's actions. Maggie sees a gun under his coat and assumes he's a cop, which couldn't be further from the truth. The man, Horace Nighthyde, has actually been contracted to kill Maggie's twin sister Margo. And since Maggie believes Margo had died when they were small children and nobody who knows Margo knows she has a twin, it's only natural that Nighthyde mistakes Maggie for her sister. However, when he finally gets a chance to kill Margo, the body is mistaken for Maggie. And when she sees this on the news, Maggie has a decision to make. You see, she's pregnant and married to a famous anchorman, and her news hound husband isn't the father of her child. Maggie makes that decision and takes over her twin's life, only to find that, though her sister had been wealthy, she had plenty of problems of her own, the number one being that she'd witnessed a murder and the killer wants her dead. And now she's alive again! I'm not the best writer in town, so the way I summarized the beginning of DEAD RINGER in the above two paragraphs may sound kind of convoluted. But it wasn't. Mr. Douglas writes with a flow that draws you right in, just as if you were floating down a river. Not a very peaceful river I might add. More like rushing rapids. Sometimes swirling, lookout, there's rocks ahead! Barely missed them. Oh no! Waterfalls dead ahead! Get the picture, lots of thrills, sometimes one right after another, but good characters too. People you like, people you feel like you've come to know. This is a good book, I can't say it any plainer than that.

He Killed Her, but She's Still Alive:
Horace Nighthyde is a small time crook who'd burgled one too many homes. Caught and afraid of jail, he cut a deal with the Devil, or rather with hero cop Lawrence Striker. Striker freed him, but bought his soul in the bargain. Throughout the remainder of Striker's career on the force, Nighthyde was snitch, but after Striker retired and went to work for a crooked congressman, Striker wanted more. Murder, the ultimate demand, but heck he owed Striker, besides the man was paying him well and he needs the money for his mother's medical bills. So without a blink he walks into a convenience store in Long Beach, California with a sawed off. He sees the man he's supposed to take out, pulls the trigger, blows him away, but Margo Kenyan, a blonde too pretty to kill gets a good look at him. Horace flees. When he tells Striker, the man orders Horace to take out the blonde and Horace does, only unknown to him, he kills the wrong woman. But how could he have known Margo had a twin that she'd been separated from in infancy? Only a day after the crime Margo's back, but she's different, odd. She acts like somebody else. By the time Horace figures it all out, the new Margo knows too much. She has to go. DEAD RINGER is a fast read told from the viewpoint of both the killer and the intended victim. Douglas delves deep into his characters as he takes us on journey to the dark side of human nature, then delivers us back up into the light. I read the book in one sitting, loved every paragraph, every sentence, every word. Review submitted by Captain Katie Osborne

Fantastic:
I bought "Dead Ringer" because of the reviews posted here. Actually I saw it in a So You'd Like to Guide with "Learning to Fly", by April Henry and I really liked that book, so I figured I'd give "Dead Ringer" a try, after I read the reviews. And I must say, I was not disappointed. Like the book by April Henry, "Dead Ringer" is about a woman taking over someone else's identity, only Ms. Henry's heroine steps into the life of a stranger. Mr. Douglas's heroine, Maggie, steps into the life of her twin sister, who has just been murdered and who she thought had died shortly after birth. And then Maggie's life becomes turned upside down. The man who killed her sister, now wants to kill her. Meanwhile she now has to raise her sister's daughter, deal with her sister's fiancee and somehow integrate herself into her sister's life. And of course there is the matter of the killer, who is on to her. The cops who wanna be on to her and a couple scary guys who live under the pier, who may be out to help her, or maybe not. And then there's the hero cop and the war hero congressman who want her dead. Maggie is running for her life, that is until she decides to take matters into her own hands. I really, really liked this book. Would it be a cliche if I said that is was a wild thrill ride, or that I couldn't put it down, or that I was up all night biting my nails. Yes, I suppose so, but they are all true.

An Fast-Paced Thriller with an American Cowboy Ending:
Maggie Nesbitt used to race cars in tropical jungles, then one day she killed a child in Borneo and now she works for an off road racing magazine, writing about the life she used to live. It was important for the author to get that information out early in the book, because Maggie's driving is going to be Checkov's gun. You know, if you mention a gun in the first chapter, it better go off sometime before the end of the book, or something like that. We know Maggie can drive. We also learn early on that a couple quirky bad guys have mistaken her for somebody else when they run across her in a supermarket and that one of them is very upset about it. So it comes as no shock when we later learn she has a twin sister. A twin she'd thought had died when she was a baby, but is, for a few pages at least, very much alive. Maggie is pregnant and her husband isn't the father. He's also kind of a jerk and even though she doesn't seem to think so, I didn't like him from the get go. So when the bad guys killed her twin and the body is identified as Maggie, Maggie does some quick research and takes over her sister's life, thinking her problems are over. But they are just beginning, because her twin is engaged, has a daughter, plus the bad guys who killed her now want to kill Maggie. And now back to that driving. There are a couple driving scenes that are simply hair raising. One, she's being pursued by a killer cop in a BMW as she's racing along in the Porsche that used to belong to her sister. And two, when she and her sidekick gal pal are driving hell bent for leather in a VW, first running from the cops, then in a desperate attempt to stop our baddies before they kill Maggie's new daughter (remember I said the twin had a daughter). But the real cap on this adventure tale is the American cowboy ending. I didn't expect it and I just loved it. What do you do when you can't get justice through the system? Why if you're a real American man (even if you're gay), you take the law into your own hands. This book had quite a few characters and they were all written well. There's the black, ex-activist who teams up with Maggie. There's her best friend Gordon, gay, ex-FBI agent. There's Billy Wolfe the cop with the shaved head and his Albino cop pal Norton, two guys who aren't above taking the law into their own hands. There's our earnest bad guys Horace and Virgil Nighthyde who can't seem to get a break. There's the lovable homeless guys Darley and Theo who live under the pier. And there is Maggie herself, a woman who fights back. And of course, there is that capper of an ending. Just a great book! Andy Raven, Raving United Fan

A Wild Ride!:
My mother gave me this book along with "Tangerine Dream" by Ken Douglas writing with Jack Stewart. In my review of "Tangerine Dream" I said that it was kind of a chick book. I only gave it four stars, because frankly I was a little disappointed. It was sort of a love story written like a thriller. So I waited a couple weeks before reading "Dead Ringer" expecting more of the same. Boy! Was I ever wrong. This book grabbed me by the seat of the pants and pulled me along on a wild ride that I just couldn't believe. There is this one scene where the author has the lead character racing along in a Porsche in the middle of the night with the bad guy hot on her tail in a BMW. I was in that Porsche, sweating and scared, as heroine Maggie has that car going seventy, then eighty, then ninety, avoiding a nuke, then dumping the car in the bay. Wow! what excitement! Let me say it again, this ain't no chick book! It's a thriller you won't be able to put down. I was just enthralled and I know you will be too.