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Monday, June 8, 2009
title: The Secret Keeper
author: Paul Harris
published: 2009
genre: Mystery/Thriller
pages: 318
first line: He ran his tongue over his swollen gums and tasted blood.
courtesy of: TLC Booktours
rated: 4 out of 5
In The Secret Keeper, British journalist, Danny Kellerman gets an assignment in war torn Sierra Leone, West Africa. It's the opportunity of a lifetime. While there, Danny meets a woman named Maria Tirado. In Sierra Leone, the RUF (Revolutionary United Front) has taken over and rules with brutality, senselessly murdering and torturing. Maria operates an orphanage for child soldiers. She helps children who where made to join the RUF were turned into murderers and had no way to get back home.
Now, four years later, Danny has left war torn Sierra Leone and lives in London with his girlfriend Rachel. One day Danny receives an urgent letter from his long ago love, Maria. She is pleading for his help. After some investigating, Danny finds out that Maria was murdered.
Danny decides he needs to uncover the truth about her death, so he goes back to Sierra Leone. Once there he meets up with an old aquantaince, a man named Kam, and begins trying to find out the truth about Maria's murder. It turns out, her death is being covered up and passed on as a robbery.
Back at his desk, Danny, for the first time, allowed himself to remember Maria. Her long, dark hair, the birthmark on her right shoulder, the way she narrowed her eyes when she thought he was getting out of line. Her touch. How could comeone like her die? It felt as if the universe was out of sync. He had to get over there. Had to see where it had happened, to see that something so wrong could be real.
The Secret Keeper is well written, interesting and sucked me in from page one. The story takes off and doesn't stop, I didn't find a dull moment.
The plot was great, and the characters are well written. I liked Danny, and even though I didn't really think he should have gone off to Africa and endanger his own life in order to find out the truth about Maria, I wanted him to make it home safely. Paul Harris' writing is memorable, he has a way with words. Several passages stood out.
It was a tap on the shoulder that had sent him to Sierra Leone for the first time. He liked to imagine, sitting later in a Freetown bar or, afterward, alone and drunk in a London pub, that it was like a finger from God coming out of the sky to change his life. But it was a tap on the shoulder. That had been all. That had been enough.
He did not turn around and he kept his eyes focused on the doorway at the end of the corridor. It was open and he could see daylight outside. His heart was beating so loud he felt the man behind must hear it, must sense his terror. Finally he was there, emerging into the light. Kam sat in his car and started the engine. Danny walked hestitantly forward, swaying slightly, the sunshine on his skin feeling like a rebirth.
Special thanks to Lisa at TLC Booktours
click here to see the other blogs participating in this book tour
related link: http://www.thesecretkeeper.us/
