The Day I Died

This book showed up unexpectedly on my doorstep along with a win from LibraryThing Early Reviewers, courtesy of the publisher. What a fun surprise. It was of a genre I enjoy, a topic of interest, and a situation with which I was a bit familiar. I found it a page-turner, easy to pick up, hard to put down. Really held my attention as it was captivating from the start and I needed to pay attention to figure out what was going on. I felt the middle got bogged down a bit , dragged on, and became unnecessarily repetitive with an unnecessary and unconvincing (literal) roll in the hay. Strong beginning and end, with a confrontation that had my heart racing. I will likely recommend this title to others and share my copy via a local Little Free show more Library. show less

The Day I Died by Lori Rader-Day is a very highly recommended compelling mystery/novel psychological suspense. I found it compulsively readable and unputdownable.

Anna Winger is a handwriting analyst who sometimes works with the FBI and law enforcement as well as for private citizens. Anna can look at original samples of handwriting and deduce more about a person than they may want to reveal. She has also been constantly on the move for the last thirteen years in an attempt to hide from her former violent, abusive boyfriend. This time she and Joshua, her thirteen-year-old son, have ended up in a small town in Parks, Indiana. She avoids friendships and any ties with the community she's living in so she can pack up Josh and leave the show more moment something seems threatening.

Then her FBI contact refers her to Parks Sheriff Russ Keller to assist in the investigation and search for a missing toddler by looking at some written material left behind. The sheriff is reluctant to trust her analysis and she is reluctant to get involved in this small town case. Anna agrees to help, but it places her in close contact with the community and the ghosts of her past. The mother of the toddler is also missing and it seems like the father might be abusive, all of which strikes too close to home for Anna. Did the mother of the boy stage their disappearance to escape abuse?

To complicate matters even more, Josh is starting to rebel, by talking back, hiding his activities, and acting out. Is it because he is a teen or is his behavior linked to the friends he has made in Parks? When Josh disappears too, Anna must disclose parts of her personal life to try and find her son. Her biggest fear is that he went to look for a man he never met, his father, and Anna will have to return to her hometown to find him and confront her past.

Although Anna is very guarded with details into her past, we slowly learn more about her as we also learn more about the case the sheriff is trying to solve - and as she tries to find her son. While the buildup is slow to start, the narrative picked up the pace rather dramatically and then took off at a gallop. Anna is a great character, fully developed and interesting. She has amazing powers of observation and notices many small clues and details along the way.

The writing is excellent and kept my attention throughout, especially as it opens with the titular "On the day I died..." The unraveling of the clues in the intricate cases are interlaced with the slow reveal of Anna's past and what she has been running from for all these years. It all makes for a masterful novel of mystery and suspense along with a powerful statement about abuse. There is a twist that, upon reflection, seems too convenient, but I overlooked it as the action was pretty intense at that point. Once you get through the slow-ish set up, the action and information increase exponentially to the satisfying conclusion.

Disclosure: I received a copy of this book from HarperCollins.

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When four-year-old Aidan Ransey disappears, Sheriff Russell Keller asks handwriting analyst Anna Winger to use her expertise on a ransom note. Anna is reluctant, but agrees to help despite her resolve to keep a low profile and not to become involved.

Whenever she feels threatened or fears discovery, Anna and her thirteen-year-old son, Joshua, move. They have no permanence in their lives, something that suddenly seems to disturb Joshua. But Anna knows she doing the right thing; she must protect Joshua . . . and herself . . . from the things of the past that threaten them. But in her effort to protect her son and keep herself safe, Anna may have made a grave error . . . .

Complex characters in a compelling mystery set the tone for this show more suspenseful tale although Anna’s introspective consideration of her personal situation and her continually-wavering self- confidence have a tendency to slow the story’s momentum. The kidnapping of the young boy is, for a time, pushed aside but ultimately resolves itself in an unexpected way. Although readers will easily guess most of the secrets of Anna’s past, the steadily building suspense is sure to keep the pages turning.

Recommended.

I received a free copy of this book through the LibraryThing Early Readers program show less

Real Rating: 3.25* of five

The Publisher Says: Anna Winger knows people better than they know themselves with only a glance—at their handwriting. Hired by companies seeking trustworthy employees and by the lovelorn hoping to find happiness, Anna likes to keep the real mess of other people’s lives at arm’s length and on paper. But when she is called to use her expertise on a ransom note left behind at a murder scene in the small town she and her son have recently moved to, the crime inevitably gets under Anna’s skin. Was the child kidnapped from his home by his own mother, trying to save him from his abusive father? Thirteen years ago, Anna did the same thing for her unborn son, now a troubled teen rebelling against the protected show more life she’s given him.

The local sheriff wants no part of Anna’s brand of hocus pocus, but he’ll do whatever it takes to bring his community and his office back under control. Anna is able to discern from the note that no one in the little boy’s family has been safe for a long time. And bringing him and his mother home could be the worst possible outcome for them.

A GIFT FROM A "FRIEND" WHOSE BIBLIOHOLISM RIVALS MY OWN. *FIST-SHAKE*

My Review: Domestic thrillers aren't always bad. This one is of the un-bad ilk. Anna's life hasn't been easy, or peaceful; it's been marred by violence from every man in it. Of course she has a son. But she's raised him in such a way that he's clear that interpersonal violence isn't an option.

So he runs away from her to find out why she's so het-up about this.

What happens, then, is an extended hunt for and unearthing of Anna's many wounds from source to cessation. Why I recommend it is Author Rader-Day's facility with characterization. I'm less enamored of her exposition and dialogue.

I turned in a slow circle, taking in the empty room. Something wasn't right. What was it? And then I saw. His backpack was missing from the table. "His backpack."

"What?"

"I don't know," I said. A shrill alarm began to ring in my ears, and I raised my voice to be heard over it. "I don't know."

"OK," Joe said. "Let's be calm. What about his backpack?"

"It's not on the table. It's always, always on the table." I thought of the pack's dense bulk, the thump it made when he set it down.

Now, let me be clear: This isn't bad writing. It's, um, uninspired, uninspiring writing IMO, but definitely not bad...the "pack" syllable repeated as often as it is, plosive and glottal and easy to hear, just works better as audio than visual. There is quite a bit of the writing that works as an ear-read or as film dialogue but not as visualization aid. It leaves me, the reader-as-cranial-filmmaker, without any room to decide things for myself. That's not my preference in reading. Hence my less-than-half-star over the base 3. Which, remember!, means "good!" show less

Anna Winger has spent thirteen years hiding from her former husband. She and her teenaged son, Josh, have lived in Tennessee, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Illinois, and are now residents of Parks, Indiana, where Anna freelances as a handwriting expert for corporations, private individuals, and the police. Things start to go wrong when Josh becomes increasingly rebellious, impertinent, and unpredictable. Furthermore, Anna is under pressure to help solve two kidnapping cases, one involving an executive and the other, two-year old Aidan Ransey, who "had bottomless brown eyes and tousled hair like the fuzz of a baby bird." Some townspeople dismiss Anna's profession as "hocus-pocus," but she firmly believes that handwriting can reveal a show more great deal about a person's character.

Having fled a man she detests, Anna confronts her past when, after a heated argument, Josh runs away. In desperation, she returns to her former home to search for the boy and, once again, experiences the feelings of fear and helplessness that drove her to go on the run in the first place. "The Day I Died," by Lori Rader-Day, features a heroine whose narration reveals that, beneath her carefully constructed façade, Anna is vulnerable, guilt-ridden, and frightened.

In "The Day I Died," the author explores the nature of small towns, where everyone knows everyone else's business. In addition, Rader-Day touches on the horrors of domestic violence; how secrets and lies drive a wedge between parents and children; and the importance of facing reality, no matter how unpleasant the prospect may be. Unfortunately, the novel goes off the rails during its concluding pages. In addition to throwing mind-boggling coincidences into her over-the-top plot, Rader-Day places Anna in mortal danger when the heroine makes an effort to right some egregious wrongs. Although this work of fiction is too convoluted and implausible to earn a strong recommendation, Anna's love for Josh, determination, and grit will earn readers' sympathy and admiration. show less

Lori Rader-Day introduces what might have been an intriguing new element for an overloaded genre in her latest novel The Day I Died. A handwriting expert with a traumatic history who consults with law enforcement, business and the private sector, Anna Winger can glean information from provided samples in a Sherlockian style. She is an eccentric, guarded and prickly character who over the past thirteen years been perpetually uprooting herself and her teenage son in order to escape a shadowy, menacing presence from her past. As her rebellious son struggles to adjust to their latest new town, Anna is enlisted to help a highly skeptical sheriff with the case of a missing toddler. Continually defensive about her abilities and what they can show more contribute to the case, Anna is begrudgingly drawn in by the community despite being distracted by her tendency to mistrust and avoid any entanglements. She is tempted to run away again when it seems that her true identity has been discovered and her son becomes increasingly insistent about learning about his origins. Soon events force Anna to return to her childhood home, and some incredible connections crop up between her current work and her own past. Rader-Day skillfully portrays the contentious mother-son relationship, and one is left feeling truly sorry for the teen whose mother is incapable of recognizing how detrimental her decisions have been to his life. The handwriting analysis angle is provided to give the novel a twist, but seems a bit dated given the our increasingly digitized world. So many current thrillers feature a damaged female protagonist armed with a rough exterior and similar issues or backstories that whole sections of bookstores could be devoted to them. So, any differentiators from the typical formula are refreshing—if they can be well-executed and avoid being too “gimmicky” in their deployment. Unfortunately, The Day I Died falls short in both areas. Anna’s feats of handwriting analysis abilities are not exciting enough to overcome the slow pace of the first section of the book, and the plot only starts getting interesting in the final third of the book when Anna returns to her hometown. The coincidences needed to combine Anna’s present and past strain plausibility, and Anna herself is such an alienating character that she is almost a caricature of unlikability. There is also a “romantic” subplot that contributes very little and becomes an add-on that appears forced and unnecessary. Ultimately, The Day I Died is relegated to a merely passable entry in a field that already provides too much rich competition for it to stand out successfully from the crowd.

Thanks to the author, Harper Collins/William Morrow and Library Thing for an advance copy of this book in exchange for an unbiased review. show less

Anna, the protagonist in this multi-stranded story, is subcontracting her handwriting analysis expertise to the FBI and also aiding the local sheriff in locating a missing child. There are also cases involving drugs, missing evidence, and more.
We learn she was abused as a child and has been on the run from another abusive relationship for most of her adult life, moving from place to place to protect herself and her now thirteen-year-old son from her former boyfriend.
This is not a simple story, but Lori Rader-Day handles all the parts with skill, often dropping in little bits of seeming trivia, which later on lead to major moments in the story.
It is hard to believe Anna could learn as much as she does from the handwriting on a grocery show more list or a signature on an evidence form, but that is a minor niggle. This is a well done thriller. show less