| Reviews of Too Near The Edge |
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| Reviewed by Diane Kasperski http://www.armchairinterviews.com/reviews/categories/ mystery/too_near_the_edge.php December, 2006 |
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| Adam Meyer is deeply troubled and needs to get away. Everyone recommends going hiking at the Grand Canyon. Unfortunately for Adam someone pushes him over the edge to his death. However, the police rule his death as a suicide and do not do any investigating. |
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| Cleo Sims is a grief counselor with a controversial way of helping her patients. She has a special therapy called the Contact Project. The Contact Project helps clients get in touch with loved ones who have died so that there can be closure. |
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| Sharon Meyer desperately wants to see if the Contact Project could help her contact Adam. She doesn't accept that Adam killed himself as they were so happy. |
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| The more Cleo finds out about details surrounding the death of Adam, the more suspicious she is that his death was no accident. |
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| Who could have killed him and why? There are quite a few suspects. All of them have secrets and all of them want to keep their secrets hidden at all costs. |
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| Cleo believes deeply in her Contact Project. Tyler, a true 'surfing dude,' is a spirit that she unintentionally contacts during her first time in the "apparition room." He pops in and out of Cleo's world every once in a while, giving her clues. The problem is the clues are in surfer's lingo and very vague. The one consistent message is that she "needs to ride the wave to the end." |
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| Cleo's biggest problem throughout is--whom can she trust? What was bothering Adam so much that he had to go away to think about it? The mystery deepens and gets more complicated the more she finds out, all leading to a very exciting and unexpected standoff towards the end. |
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| Armchair Interviews says: Murder, suicide--which is it? |
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| © 2006 CASI Publishing, All Rights Reserved |
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| http://www.bookpleasures.com |
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| Reviewed by Jennifer Andrew http://www.bookpleasures.com/Lore2/idx/17/2374/My stery/article/Too_Near_The_Edge.html December, 2006 |
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| Too Near The Edge is set in present day Boulder Colorado and is told in the first person by a character named Cleo, short for Cleopatra. Her profession as a Medium and Grief Counselor brings her into touchy situations but she never thought it would lead her into a world of intrigue, mystery and murder. Cleo is asked to help a grief stricken single mother who lost her husband Adam in a tragic accident but her client, Sharon, thinks her husband could have been murdered. Using Cleo’s techniques at helping her clients to contact their loved ones, Sharon gets clues from beyond the grave to help solve her husband’s mystery. Cleo has problems of her own when Sharon’s life starts to interfere with her livelihood, which forces Cleo to take a stand for her beliefs and come to the aid of her client. |
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| The prominent characters in the novel move the story along to build suspense. Cleo gets visited from time to time by Tyler, a surfer apparition who gives her clues in slang surfer language that she has to decipher. Her “boyfriend” Pablo thwarts her profession while Erik, a fitness trainer and nutritionist, tries to pawn his herbal business on her. Dr Waycroft, Sharon’s father, is an overbearing, self-righteous behavioral psychologist who ends up making Cleo’s life unbearable if she insists on standing in his way. The reader will be able to identify with many of these characters in the book as well as the minor characters who play a role in the flow of the story. |
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| Too Near The Edge gets a hold of you from the first page and you can’t seem to put the book down. The author makes you keep reading to see what Cleo is engaged in next. The reader gets carried away by Cleo’s actions and ends up rooting for her drive to do the right thing and hope she doesn’t blunder into any trouble. Lynn Osterkamp makes the reader frown at Pablo’s insensitivity towards Cleo’s situation but you end up breathing a sigh of relief when he comes through for her. |
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| The interesting thing about this novel is that it appears to be three mysteries entangled into one. The reader must figure out what happened to Adam as well as experience the sequence the characters have to go through to figure out Adam’ s demise. The third mystery lies with Dr. Ahmed, the physician in charge at the retirement home in which Cleo’s grandmother resides, and what he’s involved in. |
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| This exciting novel by Lynn Osterkamp is recommended to anyone who loves mysteries. Throw in humor with a paranormal twist and you have an adventure on your hands. |
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| Jennifer Andrew Freelance Writer / Book Reviewer Book Reviews: http://booksiloved.com/38/ Website: http://www.femmevip.com |
