Shadow Behind the Curtain

by Velda Johnston

Deborah opposes the acting chief of police in her efforts to reopen a twenty-year-old murder case to clear her father's name, and stirs up a secret, violent enemy.

Genres: Mystery, Gothic

Hardcover

First published December 31, 1985

About the author

Velda Johnston was a writer of romantic suspense. She also wrote under the pseudonym 'Veronica Jason'.

Reviews

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

In 151 pages this does all of the things modern psychological thrillers tend to require upward of 400 pages to achieve.

Manhattan corporate beancounter Debby Channing always thought her father and mother divorced when she was an infant because things just didn't work out for them. Now she discovers it was because her father was convicted of killing a child in the small New Mexico town, Prosperity, where she was born. When her mother, who kept this from her, is killed by an NYC taxi, Debby decides to go back to Prosperity and prove her father's innocence . . .

The romance part of this romantic mystery is as predictable as a Hallmark movie (Debby's uppercrust fiance dumps her because of her father's incarceration, even if father proves innocent; but there's this diamond-in-the-rough cop . . .), but the mystery part is far less easily educed until near the end: the true killer of that child, twenty years ago, is not the person you might think . . . even though that "person you might think" does have an involvement in the crime.

So why did I like this novel so much? Well, Shadow Behind the Curtain set out with a simple aim in mind: to entertain me with a mystery. And in this it succeeded admirably. Because of its length, it made me speculate as to what a hardboiled pulp writer of the 1940s or 1950s might have done with the plot, and I realized that he (and it would've been a he) would have followed it fairly closely, even if the manner of telling (and the point-of-view character) would surely have been very different. In other words, the novel pressed all the right buttons for me.

I enjoyed but wasn't overwhelmingly enamored of the last Velda Johnston psychological thriller I read, but this one has persuaded me I must seek out more of her work.

Great literature? No. But splendid at what it sets out to do? You bet.

[Nancy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a few comments on points that bothered me.

1) The MFC sees a mentally disabled person one time at a house where there was a murder 20+ years ago and decides he must be the killer.
2) She didn't know her father was even alive a month ago but now is totally certain he is innocent of the murder he was convicted of. She comes to a town she has not been since a baby and accuses the police of screwing up the investigation, maybe purposely, as well as accusing other townspeople of the murder.

[Leandra Luna · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was ok. It wasn't bad but not quite good either. Literary it gave me nothing, and almost everything storywise I could guess before. I could guess the bad guy even though the revelation did surprise me. My favourite person was Ben Farrel.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it.

[Sharon Buxton · Rating 3 out of 5]

C. fiction, suspense, western setting; typical for time period, from stash, discard

[Lori Shafer · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Shadwo Behind the Curtain Deborah safe predictable like is turned upside down. First, her beloved step-father dies. Her mother is faced with financial problems for the first time in a long time. Deborah's fiance is starting to question their relationship.

In the middle of the turmoil, Deborah discovers her biological father is in jail. He is serving a life sentence for murdering a little girl while Deborah was a toddler. Deborah sets off to meet her father and find out if he is as innocent as her mother believed him to be.

Although not as entertaining as her other books, Shadwo Behind the Curtain is an enjoyable read.