Unspeakable

June 8, 1998
A 20-year-old unsolved murder in a small East Texas town sets the stage for this fast-paced and romantically charged, if stiffly written, thriller, the latest (after Fat Tuesday) from the prolific Brown. Everyone in Blewer, Tex., assumes that the nefarious Herbold brothers, Carl and Cecil, murdered Patsy McCorkle two decades ago, but neither was ever charged with the killing. Carl, the more menacing brother, has spent those decades in an Arkansas prison for an unrelated crime. But now Carl has escaped and Blewer residents fear he might come back to town. Local rancher Delray Corbett has more to fear than most--the Herbolds are his estranged stepsons. So when drifter Jack Sawyer swaggers onto Delray's ranch looking for work, Delray hires him, thinking that Jack's presence will ease his mind regarding the safety of his deaf, widowed daughter-in-law, Anna, and her five-year-old son, David. But Delray doesn't know that Jake has a closer connection to Blewer, and to the Corbetts, than he's letting on. Brown's deftly plotted narrative twists and turns without losing hold of its suspense. Her characters are fully fleshed out, and she pays particular attention to Anna's situation as a deaf woman facing ignorance in a rural community. Some graphic sex and violence and the voices of these east Texan good (and bad) ol' boys animate this harrowing tale of crime, revenge and redemption. Major ad/promo; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selections.

March 1, 1998
A killer's escape from prison, the arrival of a mysterious stranger at Anna Corbett's cattle ranch, and Anna's own self-imposed silence are somehow connected in Brown's latest. Following up 31 New York Times best sellers, this book is, not surprisingly, a Literary GuildR and Doubleday Book Club main selection.

May 1, 1998
Another surefire blockbuster from the phenomenally best-selling Brown, a skilled pop-novelist who calculatedly combines romance with brutality in her steamy, relentless thrillers. Brown writes with vehement vulgarity and extravagant bloodthirstiness when tracking the pillaging, raping, and killing spree performed by her vicious villain, Carl, and his moronic sidekick, Myron, who are cheap and, frankly, shameless knockoffs of the stars of Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men." She then switches to soft-focus, sexy love-babble as her damsel in distress, a pretty young widow who just happens to be deaf (a disability Brown manages to cast as both heroic and titillating), falls for Jack, the hired hand, a mystery man who appears just prior to the onset of big trouble. The sleazy action begins on both fronts when Carl and Myron break out of prison. News of their escape stirs up old fears and sorrows all across East Texas, causing Ezzy Hardge, the newly and reluctantly retired sheriff, a spate of sleepless nights. Ezzy has been grieving for more than 20 years over the unsolved murder of a notorious young woman, a murder he and everyone else believes Carl committed. The truth is finally revealed after the bloodbath subsides, and after Brown finishes raiding and tarnishing a slew of classic American novels. No matter: people absolutely adore this stuff. ((Reviewed May 1, 1998))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1998, American Library Association.)