Afterimage

Chris Sinclair #2

by Jay Brandon

District Attorney Chris Sinclair is stunned by the resemblance between the forensically reconstructed face of a 14-year-old murder victim and the college sweetheart he hasn't seen for almost two decades. Although the girl was gone from home for three months before her body was found in a shallow grave on the outskirts of San Antonio, she'd never been reported missing. And when Chris finds her mother, Jean, he discovers two more equally shocking Kristen, the murdered teenager, has an older sister, Clarissa, who is Chris's own daughter; and Clarissa is missing too. Sinclair's troubled feelings compel his very personal interest in saving the child he's never met, and in tracking down the presumed perpetrator of both crimes--a shadowy Fagin-like businessman named Raleigh Pentell who controls a gang of young thieves and supplies them and their classmates with illegal drugs as well. Managing to rescue Clarissa from her captivity, Chris assembles a difficult and circumstantial case against Pentell. But in the process of bringing him to justice, Chris discovers that Jean, who lived a little outside the law when they were lovers, may have been involved in her daughters' murder and abduction.

While the denouement is a bit long in coming, the growing relationships between Chris and his daughter and between Clarissa and adolescent psychologist Anne Greenwald, Chris's fiancée, are enough to sustain one's interest until the end; Brandon is an accomplished writer with atypical insight into his characters' emotional lives, which are movingly explicated. Jean remains an enigma and not as fully explored as she might have been. Although not an entirely sympathetic figure, she lingers in the reader's mind after the other characters have faded away. --Jane Adams

Genres: Fiction, Mystery

Paperback

First published February 12, 2000

Reviews

[RESHMA PRASAD · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not necessary that every murder stories will come into a clear climax. After image by Jay Brandon is such a book making the readers to complete it.

The District Attorney, Chris Sinclair, in between one of his cases, comes to know about an unidentified face of a girl (recreated by forensic specialist) which reminds him his old girlfriend, Jean. This new case is having a connection with the existing case and Chris finds Jean after a long time and her two daughters, Clarissa, the elder one and later depicted as Chris's daughter and younger one Kristen, the victim.

The major plot of the story and progression happens in a courtroom. And later it ends with alternative solutions which has same scope of possibilities.

[Ruth · Rating 3 out of 5]

liked this book but somehow confused at the ending.. not sure it all tied up ... although I didn't think much of Jean I didn't think her capable of (spoiler).....................
knowing her daughter was killed and then covering it up..

[Spd]

Chris Sinclair #2

[Jackie Simons]

Read 7/00

[Jim Moffett · Rating 3 out of 5]

12-09