Island Life

By: Michael W. Sherer

Narrated by: Milton Bagby

How do you live without someone who’s been part of your life for 20 years? Jack Holm begins to find out when his wife doesn’t return to their suburban Seattle home after shopping one day. Her absence is not unusual, given her flight-attendant’s job, and it’s a respite from recent marital discord, so Jack feels relief, not worry. But when a day goes by with no word, then another, Jack, his teenage daughter and 10-year-old son do worry.

After three days, Jack reports her missing. Suddenly, Jack is swept up in a terrifying conflagration of events that threaten to tear his world apart. The police suspect him of foul play. Children and Family Services suspects him of abuse. And someone is spying on his kids. Now a single dad, Jack tries to help his kids deal with their mother’s disappearance, but when he’s arrested on suspicion of murder, he stands to lose it all. The state and his mother-in-law want to take away his kids. The police want him in jail. Abandoned by friends and family, Jack has nowhere to turn, and the mounting evidence begins to make him think he might actually be a killer.

But mysterious phone calls and a CD containing child pornography that turns up in his wife’s belongings convince him otherwise. He quickly realizes the only way to stay ahead of the law and prevent his children from being put in foster care is to find out what happened to his wife. With new-found courage from a woman who believes in his innocence and the help of another outcast, Jack pursues a shadowy Japanese Yakuza crime boss from Seattle to Las Vegas and back, putting himself and all the people he loves in mortal danger.

©2008 Michael W. Sherer (P)2010 Books In Motion

Things Didn't Add Up

I want to call it a swiss cheese plot--full of holes. Certain things were never resolved. Without adding spoilers, I'll just say there were a couple of plot points that were never addressed. And as a listener, I’m left asking 'why would she do that--it makes no sense.'

The main character, who supposedly spent a lot of time raising his children, needed a lesson in just that, raising children. His weakness and willingness to let his teen daughter treat him with disrespectful was terribly frustrating.

Seriously, your wife is missing, your children are asking, 'where's mom?' and you wait almost a week to report her missing? You call her friends but won't say you can't find her? As my husband says, "Son, that dog won't hunt." I was left thinking, what is wrong with this man?

I have to admit I have never read a novel by a male author who spent so much time describing what people were wearing, down to excruciating details. I was always taught with regard to writing--don't tell the reader, show them. There was way too much time spent on description of benign things that didn't matter and it got in the way of the story.

I think it was a good idea but got lost along the way. Mr. Bagby did a great job with the narration.