The Witness

Starred review from July 3, 1995
Through a mosaic of tantalizing clues, premonitions and withheld identities, Brown (Charade) has created another page-turner to ensure her phenomenal popularity. This story pivots on the relationship between Kendall Deaton Burnwood, an idealistic public defender, and U.S. Marshal John McGrath, who is returning her to Prosper, S.C., as a material witness when their car crashes into a ravine in Georgia. With her three-month-old in tow, Kendall tries repeatedly to abandon John, who's hobbled by temporary amnesia and a leg injury. Kendall fears the town of Prosper for good reason: it's where she witnessed her husband and father-in-law, ringleaders of a white-supremacist vigilante group, ritualistically execute one of her clients. Evading Matt and Gibb Burnwood as well as the FBI, Kendall is also pursued across the South by the Crook twins, vengeful brothers of a disgruntled client whose idea of a celebration is a drinking binge and the deflowering of a 12-year-old niece. The push-pull generated by John's memory loss and Kendall's terror sparks a sexual tension that is deftly and vividly consummated, and secrets keep popping out until the last page. Brown's forte is glitch-free, all-over-the-map plotting, and her take on white-trashy behavior pushes just the right buttons. Major ad/promo/author tour.

March 1, 1995
Brown's 16 appearances on the New York Times Best Sellers list gives instant appeal to this forthcoming tale of a young woman who testifies against a pair of white supremacists--who just happen to be her ex-husband and father-in-law. A Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club main selection.

May 1, 1995
Kendall Deaton wants to be the best public defender the town of Prosper, South Carolina, has ever seen. She figures her dream is in the bag; she is married to the handsome newspaper editor, her father-in-law is a well-respected and popular man in the community, and the downtrodden of Prosper need a devoted advocate. What Kendall doesn't expect, though, is a town so entrenched in bigotry and "perfection" that she soon becomes the enemy, even to her new family. The book opens as Kendall pulls herself from the wreckage of a serious car accident. In the hospital, Kendall is careful not to disclose the true past of the seriously injured male driver; she tells the hospital personnel that he's her husband, and even though he's suffering from amnesia, he knows it is not true. Brown unfolds the story by alternating between the present and the past, keeping the reader guessing what's what all along. Though not an elegant writer, this prolific author writes a true page-turner that is recommended for fans of graphic crime fiction. ((Reviewed May 01, 1995))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1995, American Library Association.)

June 3, 1996
Brown's latest thriller, in which an idealistic public defender discovers a terrible secret about her new husband, spent 11 weeks on PW's bestseller list.