The Lailly Worm

by Walter Donway

To sexy lawyer Caroline Brecher, her weekend house in ultra-fashionable East Hampton is a symbol of success and hard work rewarded--and arriving on a perfect August afternoon is sheer luxury. She doesn’t care that she has no social plans, no date, no visitors to her retreat in the northwest woods.

But suddenly she does have visitors--unimaginably terrifying visitors, and her life becomes a surreal torment, “the pefect torture of a woman…” Will the soul-destroying ordeal ever end? Is there escape? Can what has been done to her, her life and very concept of herself as a woman ever be avenged?

The Lailly Worm, named after the legendary Scottish popular ballad, is a romantic thriller about how evil, striking in an instant out of nowhere, can crush the beautiful, the successful, the “safe”--even in the privileged suclusion of a exclusive Long Island resort town. Sometimes, though, fate offers the victim a slender chance to fight back.

But when a beautiful woman who took her passion and allure for granted has been reduced to “the lowly worm,” will there enough left of her courage to fight justice? Can the love of a tough ex-Marine who conceives a passion for Caroline save her—even from herself—as their affair blazes into life in the presence of deadly danger?

The pace of this novel keeps accelerating right up to the moment innocence and evil come face-to-face. Then, you discover that the real battle is not to salage life itself, but to reignite the passion that makes life worth living.
Caroline Brecher is every womam—and human being—whose courage and will to live and love again are tested when the unimaginable—and unendurable—strikes out of nowhere.

Genres: Suspense

Kindle Edition

First published February 10, 2013

About the author

In 1998, famous "New York Times" political columnist and expert commentator on language, William Safire, then also a Dana Foundation trustee, tapped Walter Donway to create and edit "Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science"—now in its 19th year. Safire explained to the Foundation’s financial vice president, Burton Mirksy, “He’s a wordsmith.” And then, in typical Safire fashion, cracked, “And he’s also a Right-winger!”

Far more than a “Right-winger,” he was a genuine intellectual drawn to the powerful philosophical revolution launched by Ayn Rand with her novel, "Atlas Shrugged," and a dozen books on epistemology (the theory of knowledge), ethics, politics, and esthetics that followed until her death in 1982.

Her philosophy of “Objectivism,” primarily a historic defense of reason, individualism, and laissez faire capitalism, brought into existence the modern libertarian movement and Libertarian Party politics. Rand herself had no patience with any libertarian politics not rooted in the fundamentals of philosophy, including the relationship between reason, inalienable individual rights, and capitalism.

Few Presidential candidates of any party met Rand’s stern test of an advocacy of capitalism rooted in reason and individual rights. And yet, against the outright socialist, redistributionist, egalitarian-hippie politics of Sen. George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic Presidential candidate, she threw her support behind Richard Nixon—a clear-eyed calculated choice among available options. Donway (“rather dutifully,” he says) became in-volved in the Nixon campaign in 1968 and again in 1972.

Looking back, he comments: “This was Boston during the anti-war movement and student re-bellion—the Black Liberation Army and middle-class New Left kids were gunning down bank guards. So, when I held up my Nixon poster, guys came over, grabbed my collar, and wanted to fight.”

Much later, his support of Nixon, which Donway saw as minor in is life, became the basis of bonding with Safire, who worked for Nixon in both campaigns, became chief Nixon speech writer along with Patrick Buchanan, and, as he commented later, “Managed to stay out of jail.” He did more than that, becoming the showcase Libertarian among New York Times columnists—but soon an indispensable voice in politics and, in his “On Language” column in the Sunday Magazine, the country’s best-known language “maven”—his favored term for it.

By then, Donway had published dozens of articles and essays for publications receptive to the libertarian point of view, including as a columnist for "Private Practice," journal of the Congress of County Medical Societies, and "Human Events," the renowned feisty Washington, D.C., weekly paper of conservative opinion edited by Tom Winters. At that time, "Human Events" was almost alone on the media scene as a critic of liberal-leftism and advocate of capitalism. At the same time, though, he published the lead op-ed article in "Wall Street Journal" “In Defense of Decades of Greed,” solicited by WSJ editorial page editor, Robert Bartley.

When accused of “not looking at the other side,” Donway laughs and points out that all his professional positions, as an executive at Brown University, the Commonwealth Fund (the country’s earliest major foundation devoted to experimentation with health care programs and medical education), and the Dana Foundation were with “certified East Coast Liberal institutions.” He says, “from 1969 until my retirement in 2004, I was a fixture of the Liberal-Left intellectual bureaucracy. Don’t tell me I need to be exposed to that viewpoint!”

In effect, however, he found nothing to refute—or even seriously challenge—the philosophy of Objectivism. The real reform that called to him was of Objectivism itself, which had become cultish, intolerant, and closed to change. It was not unusual—closer to typical—for a powerful new philosophy that set itself against the verities, assumptions, and dogmas of its time. In

Reviews

[Eric Henderson · Rating 2 out of 5]

A woman is assaulted, then held captive for two years without any human interaction. When she gets away, she's sort of screwed up sexually. That's the first half - it's essentially from her point of view, and not terribly realistic, but pretty interesting. Then there's a break in the case, and it turns into a standard thriller, and the boyfriend used to be a Marine and there's a gun hidden in a book and everybody's taking trips to Mexico. I've never read a book that uses the word "breasts" as often as this one does.

[Diana Hockley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Firstly, congratulations to the author who came up with a new slant on the "woman in jeopardy" plot! The twist 3/4 of the way through was different and refreshing to find something more to the story.

This story had me in conflict. On the one hand, I wanted to like Caroline, and did while she was locked up. The start of the novel was superb, scary and extremely realistic. On the other, while I can't possibly know what trauma a kidnapped woman held under these circumstances and for how long would suffer, her desire to leave hospital almost immediately and go out on the town within a few days of freedom felt abhorrent to me and the FBI agent indeed cautions her to play down her appearance and attitude at one time.

I was repelled by Caroline's sexually predatory behaviour. It was as though there was nothing else to this woman, that she had no intellectual background upon which to draw to survive or to recover. Perhaps I am being unfair here, but this is how the novel affected me.

The answer to the "why" and "who" was a surprise.

[Crystal Rafuse · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was an interesting read for me. Interesting in the way that it kept my attention, without making me desperate to finish it in one sitting. I didn't LOVE it, but I didn't hate reading it. It was actually pretty decently written, I just couldn't connect with the characters as much as I would have liked, is all. And so much sex! I don't consider myself a prude, and perhaps that is how a woman would learn to cope again, after a brutal rape & kidnapping, but seriously? I found myself hoping we could just "hurry up and get it over with" just so we could get back to the story! I do have to say though, quite honestly, as far as the mystery of who was responsible for the kidnapping? That did keep me guessing right up until about 75% through the story, when Coop started suggesting suspects. Very entertaining, in that respect. I think I may just have to read another Walter Donway book or two, in order to form a more firm opinion of his work :)

[Sharone Powell · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book was engrossing and hard to put down, so I nearly gave it 3 stars for that. But the subject matter was too dark for me. I continued to read it, not just to find out who was responsible for Caroline's horrid torture, but also in the hopes she will grow and change into a more mature character after what she had to endure. But the characterization, despite the writer's attempts, wasn't that deep, and her eventual level of maturity wasn't satisfying.

[D.k. Halling · Rating 5 out of 5]

You cannot prepare yourself for the edge-of-the-seat ride. Action and plot twists, yes, but it's how Mr. Donway turns a thing inside out, leaving the reader to address basic themes from an entirely new perspective-sometimes pushing one outside of their comfort zone. I admired the heroes, which rarely happens in most of the books I read.

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing!!

I got this book for free from bookbub, and it is amazing!! From the realistic aftermath of rape and torture to the frustration of our slow moving justice system, this book definitely has all the feels. I will most assuredly buy another book by this author.

[Deborah Ozmer Diaz · Rating 3 out of 5]

WOW....I hope I am never in this situation. It must do really bad things to your mental health. I certainly never thought such evil people were out there. I can;t say I "enjoyed" the book but it was a very interesting read.