Deceit

Baxter Jackson's two wives have died within six years of each other. His first wife, Linda, was Joanne Weeks' best friend. He was the richest man in town, sponsoring a Little League baseball team. The church's head elder. Everybody's best friend. The epitome of Christian perfection. No one ever spoke against Baxter, until Joanne Wells, through an eavesdropping reporter. She is absolutely sure he was responsible for both deaths, but has no proof. During a late-night, rainy winter storm, she hits a man who claims that Melissa, a 16-year-old foster child who was living at the Baxter's home at the time of Linda's death, knows what happened to Linda, and that Joanne needs to find her. Brandilyn is known by her `seat-belt suspense.' This is one of her best in my opinion. A mysterious accident, a break-in, a shooting, etc., are just the beginning of terror for Joanne. Just when you think she has it figured out and gotten everything under control, new, unexpected twists spin everyone and everything out of control, while she scrambles to get back some sense of equilibrium. Disappointments abound, but tenacity for justice prevails. Brandilyn's flashback scenes interspersed throughout help to create intense emotions and suspense, and it's done in a definitive, calculated way-teasers to keep you hooked. And hooked you are! Brandilyn is able to keep you guessing throughout the whole book, all the way to the very end. And what an end! Shocking, revealing! Brandilyn demonstrates that what you see is not necessarily how things really are. Deceit in the heart is demonstrated in the Baxter home in ways no one in town ever imagined, except maybe a few. Through Deceit, she also challenges you to evaluate your own heart and motives. "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately wicked; who can understand it?...." Jer. 16::9. Forgiveness is also tantamount to moving on in life, as demonstrated in Deceit. This also a book of choices.... This book was provided by Zondervan in exchange for my honest review. One is never disappointed with Brandilyn's book. I'd give Deceit a 5 out of 5.

DECEIT BY BRANDILYN COLLINS is a Inspirational Suspense set in moderd day san Jose. It is well written with depth and details. The heroine, Joanne, is a skip tracer who is determined to find out the truth about the disappearance of her best friend, Linda Baxter. Who is married to the town's wealthiest, a town leader, christian and has his hands in everythig about the town and a little crooked to say the least. She is threatened, intimidated, and been attempted to scare off the pursuit of the man in question, Baxter. This story has intrigue, mystery, suspicion, suspense, inspirational overtones, fast paced, full of action and twists and turns. I would recommend this book. I have enjoyed this author's books. This is a keeper, especially if you enjoy suspense, action, inspirationa and all around great story. You won't be disappointed with this story. This book was received for review and details can be found at My Book Addiction and More and Zondervan.

Some evil shouts from rooftops, some scuttles in the dark. The greatest evil tips its face toward light with shining innocence. That opening line is as vintage Brandilyn Collins as you'll ever find. Continuing her vacation from series writing, Collins once again gives us yet another rousing story of suspense in Deceit. Collin's tagline, Seatbelt Suspense, earns its keep as this breathless tale of one woman's determination to prove who killed her best friend careens toward its dramatic conclusion. At the center of the story is Joanne Weeks. Among other things Joanne loves classic rock, Jelly Bellies - lots of Jelly Bellies - and finding people who mostly don't want to be found. Joanne is also convinced that she knows who killed her friend. The problem is no one in town would believe it. The man is her dead friend's husband and Baxter Jackson is pretty much king of the world in their town: trusted elder of the church, successful business man, benefactor to charity, friend to all and suspected by none. Except Joanne Weeks. When Joanne hits a hooded, masked man on a dark rainy road, his words to her revive a fire that has been burning within in her for six years. The fire to prove what no one else believes. The mysterious man's words prompt her to use her professional skills as a skip tracer to find the one young woman who may have witnessed what happened to her friend, Linda, and finally vindicate her assertions about the most loved man in town. Before the next day is over she will have been burglarized, threatened, shot at, and brought face to face with someone she never suspected. In past novels Collins has effectively mixed 1st and 3rd person points of view between the main character and his or her antagonist. In Deceit that method is taken to a new level. Alternating between the fast paced 1st person account of Joanne Weeks in some chapters and the 3rd person account set six years earlier of the young woman she is looking for, the author does a great job of drawing us into both character's stories. The result is the discovery that nothing is totally as it seems. Everyone has a seed of deceit in their heart. Some will kill to conceal it. Be warned, there are some pretty tough subjects dealt with in this story, most notably verbal and physical abuse. And you may find yourself begging the author to show no sympathy to someone as despicable as Baxter Jackson. Those who look the guiltiest usually are but Joanne also discovers the greatest evil tips its face toward light with shining innocence.

Six years ago in Vonita, California, Linda Jackson dies. Her fiftyish best friend skip tracer Joanne Weeks believes the husband affluent church elder Baxter Jackson killed his wife. She makes efforts to prove her assertion, but fails as everyone who knows Jackson consider him a great man. When his second wife Cherise dies in what the corner ruled was an unfortunate accident, Joanne's belief that Jackson is a spousal killer reasserts itself. This time she plans to find proof by seeking someone who might have information on what happened to Linda six years ago. However, Joanne feels someone is stalking her. Feeling her life is in danger already, she is further stunned when a stranger leaps in front of her car on a wet road pleading with her to seek out the teenage foster child Melissa Harkoff who lived with the Jacksons when Linda vanished. Few, if any writers combine inspirational messages with suspense as well as Brandilyn Collins consistently does (see Exposure). She proves this once again with Deceit. Her current tale is a superb thriller in which the heroine must peel away the deceitful masks everyone wraps themselves inside of to uncover the truth of what happened to Linda. Readers will consider what is acceptable in terms of societal deceit in terms of the family, the law and religion and what is not. However, Ms. Collins also takes her theme much deeper asking the audience to consider how will the Lord judge a person's deceits when he or she stands at the gates. The message is intertwined inside a powerful suspense thriller as the heroine peels away levels of deceit of others and the mythos she mentally spun as a psychological defense mechanism to get to the truth; if that is even truly attainable. Harriet Klausner

Oh.....my.....gosh. This book was so unbelievably good that it could be said that I had no life outside of reading for the past 2 days! Of course, Brandilyn never disappoints with anything she writes, but this book was just all kinds of awesome! I should've thought things through just a little bit more when I started on this one. Silly me decided it would be a great idea to start reading the book at night right before going to bed. And it wasn't long before the Hooded Man that's mentioned in the book's description decides to show up....at night, in a thunderstorm, on a winding road, and with a whole load of creepiness. I kid you not--in no time flat, my heart was just pounding in my chest! It got even more intense when Joanne finally makes it home after her run-in with the Hooded Man, and she thinks there might be someone in her house. Oh, and then the electricity goes out...and she thinks she's all alone. Yep, that's when I decided this book would be better read during the daytime. :o) I'm not someone that reads a lot of suspense, mainly because I usually spoil the ending for myself by try too hard to figure out the "who-done-it." Well, if all books were crafted as great as this one was, maybe I should pick 'em up a little more often! Brandilyn's trademark Seatbelt Suspense is masterfully done is this novel, and it is not to be missed. Deceit was one of the BEST books I've read so far in 2010! 5 HUGE stars!