Book Review by Aaron Lazar
Title: DAMAGE CONTROL
Author: Denise
Hamilton
Publisher: Scribner
ISBN-10:
0743296745
ISBN-13:
978-0743296748
Price: $17.82 hardcover; $12.99 Kindle Author’s website: http://www.denisehamilton.com
DAMAGE CONTROL is a complex psychological thriller set
in current day Los Angeles, peopled with vibrant characters battling fears of
survival and loss, tautly stretched loyalties, and well-camouflaged villains.
The story begins
when Maggie Silver—a young PR rep who’s struggling to support her cancer-stricken
mother and keep a house with an upside-down mortgage—is assigned to insulate
Senator Henry Paxton and his family from the press by spinning the sordid facts
of his aide’s murder and protecting the family’s reputation. After all, the
Senator has been tapped for a much higher office, and chances are he’ll move
upward quickly.
The problem is
Maggie knew the Senator’s family when she was a teenager and was the poor
church mouse best friend of rich kid Anabelle Paxton. Years have passed, and in
the time since they grew apart, neither has acknowledged or faced the memories
of the one horrible night they shared on the beach.
Hamilton weaves
some interesting themes throughout this complicated novel, including subtly
erotic romance, power struggles and cover-ups, and dangerous flirtations with
potential killers.
The author’s
style is breezy and smooth, and occasionally she sneaks in some lovely poetic
passages, well worth savoring.
“At the cemetery, Anabelle threw the first spade of earth
on the coffin. The wind shifted and ash fell softly and silently over us all,
blanketing the dark soil and clinging greasily to our clothes, reminding us of
where we’d come from and where we would all return.”
(Note: the “ash”
here refers to cinders from the wildfires burning nearby)
Here’s another
simultaneously lovely and unsettling segment:
“A voice whispered at the edge of my consciousness as the
jets screeched and the tide sucked the pebbles. If only I could make out the
words. But it was just out of reach, echoing with faint, faraway laughter,
taunting me with secret knowledge.
Anabelle?
What if she’d crossed the highway to the ocean, swimming
out until she drowned? I pictured her body carried on the swell of the waves,
arms spread like wings, orange crabs crawling in and out of empty eye sockets,
long blond ropes of hair floating like seaweed, a million microscopic sea
animals clinging to her curves, illuminating her in a phosphorescent shroud.”
Most intriguing
was the author’s inclusion of scents into the story. Hamilton’s descriptions of
the perfumes Maggie loved and remembered was evocative and poetic, and her use
of fragrance as a vital clue was brilliant. Her passages reminded me of my own
passion for essential oils and their subtle, complex aromas capable of
transporting one to places quite foreign and delicious. I discovered after
reading the book that Denise Hamilton spends time with fragrance in a
professional capacity (she blogs about perfume, for one thing) and this
explained the interesting additions. See this passage:
“The previous Christmas, we’d stood at her mother’s vanity
table, dabbing Caron’s Nuit de Noel behind our ears from the ravishing black
Deco crystal flask. It was Christmas in a bottle, rich and exotic, all mulled
wine and candied chestnuts, green pine with sandalwood and roses and a holiday
goose roasting on the horizon. Anointed for midnight mass, we’d floated down
the stairs in a cloud of scent and black velvet.”
Although this
reviewer is hardly a perfume aficionado, the descriptions of this fragrance
brought to mind the Young Living essential oil blend “Christmas Spirit,” a
delightful amalgam of orange peel, cinnamon bark, and spruce leaf oil.
In DAMAGE
CONTROL, surprises are deliciously revealed and sufficiently shocking. Denise
Hamilton is a proficient writer who maintains perfect tension and keeps her
readers turning the pages.
I recommend this
tightly woven tale of deception and love.
***
Aaron Paul Lazar
www.legardemysteries.com
Aaron Paul
Lazar writes to soothe his soul. The author of LeGarde Mysteries, Moore
Mysteries, and Tall Pines Mysteries enjoys the Genesee Valley countryside in
upstate New York, where his characters embrace life, play with their dogs and
grandkids, grow sumptuous gardens, and chase bad guys. Visit his website at www.legardemysteries.com and watch
for his upcoming Twilight Times Books releases, FOR THE BIRDS(2011),
ESSENTIALLY YOURS (2012), TERROR COMES KNOCKING (2011), FOR KEEPS (2012), DON’T
LET THE WIND CATCH YOU (2012), and the author’s preferred editions of DOUBLE
FORTÉ and UPSTAGED (2012).
No comments:
Post a Comment