Smash Cut by Sandra Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
This is a book that's been sitting on my shelf for awhile, one that I won through GoodReads. Like many of the other books on my shelves, I'd been meaning to get through it for some time. It took a badly sprained ankle to do so and I wondered why I'd waited.
Julie Rutledge stands by helplessly while her companion, Paul Wheeler, is murdered in what seems to be a hold-up in the elevator of a hotel. But she knows that robbery wasn't the motive. Murder was. And the person responsible, Paul's nephew Creighton, has a rock solid alibi. She needs to find a way to make him pay. When she finds out that the Wheelers have retained high-profile lawyer Derek Mitchell to represent him, she does her best to discredit him. Instead, she finds a man that becomes enamored with her, and who realizes that Julie just may be telling the truth about how unbalanced Creighton really is.
Creighton is one of the creepiest villains I've come across in a long, long time. He's a psychopath through and through, expertly using the plots of his beloved movies to plan and execute his uncle's murder while laying the blame purely at Julie's feet. And his money and charm make it next to impossible for most people to see the truth. What was really scary was finding just how far back his depravity went.
The story started strong and exciting and from the first page turn, with more mystery being added to the mix with each chapter. Who was the mysterious woman that Derek met on his flight back from Paris? What is Julie hiding? Could Creighton be right about her? It had me wanting to turn to the back of the book and read the end just to figure out what was going to happen.
The book had me so engaged that I fought sleep and stayed up until midnight to finish it. Each page turn brought more excitement, horror, sexiness and intrigue. The only problem I had with the whole book was the surprise twist at the end. And not because of the twist itself (which I'm not going into so I don't spoil this for anyone), but because it really didn't seem to be alluded to through the rest of the story. I have no problem with twists, as long as I can go back later and say, "I should have guessed that!"
Even with this small annoyance, it was still a very solid book, heavy on the mystery and not overly sexed. I've enjoyed Sandra Brown's books in the past, and I was glad to find that this one did not disappoint.
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