The Deception

Dan Sheridan #2

by Barry Reed

Twenty-one-year-old top-ranked tennis player Donna Ditullo is hospitalized as a suicidal manic-depressive, but with the help of an experimental antidepressant, Donna makes a miraculous recovery, until she leaps from a fifth floor, leaving herself comatose and her lawyers baffled. Reprint.

Genres: Fiction

422 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published April 1, 1997

About the author

Graduate of Holy Cross and Boston College Law School.

Boston attorney who was a recipient of the Clarence Darrow Award for trial excellence, was a past president of the Massachusetts Trial Lawyers Association, a former governor of the Massachusetts Academy of Trial Lawyers and a co-founder of the American Society of Law and Medicine.

Reviews

[Traci Revette · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was fantastic - the ending was great, but I do wish it had more meat and potatoes as opposed to finishing the whole thing in one chapter. I liked how the author built up the mystery while including story line for all parties. Great book.

[Bob Box · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read in 2000. Suspenseful courtroom thriller.

[Colleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Aside from a few medical inaccuracies and some out-dated stereotyping of a psychiatric nurse, this is a sophisticated, well-written courtroom drama with a good twist at the end, albeit resulting in fairly conventional plotting of “save the girl on the railway tracks.” The critical incident is very similar to a real life event I’m familiar with, such that I wonder if the author knew of this particular case (a patient “falls” off the 5th floor lounge in a hospital, in an apparent suicide attempt). An interesting read, considering its publication date (1997), for early descriptions of technology creeping in (use of a cellular phone mentioned just once). The motivation for the lead character is finally revealed and explains some behaviour of Viet Nam vets that has probably influenced the gun culture in the US. It’s also a clunker, at 422 pages, thus taking me longer to get through it than “fast food Pattersons”. A good diversion through this part of winter, considering I picked this up at a yard sale last summer. You will know more about the law and legal proceedings from an authoritative voice and will not be exposed to gratuitous violence.

[Cws]

A Ree

[Cathy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great

[Marti]

Read this during the time I was having 35 radiation treatments. Don't remember anything more than title and author, but I did finish reading it.

[JoAnn Ainsworth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent. Kept me engrossed. Thought I was going to be disappointed in the ending, but a surprise move kept me a satisfied reader.

[Eileen Engel · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was good

[Jimmy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent!