Before He Finds Her - Michael Kardos

Category: Adults, Thriller
Language: English
Keywords: Murder Witness Protection Program

Written by Michael Kardos
Read by Julia Whelan
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: HighBridge
Release date: February 3, 2015
Duration: 10:36:19

Everyone in the quiet Jersey Shore town of Silver Bay knows the story: on a Sunday evening in September 1991, Ramsey Miller threw a blowout block party, and then murdered his beautiful wife and three-year old daughter.

But everyone is wrong, the daughter got away. Now she is nearly eighteen and tired of living in secrecy. Under the name Melanie Denison, she has spent the last fifteen years in small-town West Virginia as part of the Witness Protection Program. She has never been allowed to travel, go to a school dance, or even have Internet at home. Precautions must be taken at every turn, because Ramsey Miller was never caught and might still be looking for his daughter.

Yet despite strict house rules, Melanie has entered into a relationship with a young teacher at the local high school and is now ten weeks pregnant. She doesn’t want her child to live in hiding as she has had to. Defying her guardians and taking matters into her own hands, Melanie returns to Silver Bay in hopes of doing what the authorities failed to do: find her father before he finds her. Weaving in Ramsey’s story in the three days leading up to the brutal crime, Before He Finds Her is a stirring novel about love and faith and fear-and how the most important things can become terribly distorted when we cling to them fiercely.

“Julia Whelan’s winsome voice and capable delivery take listeners into a puzzling crime thriller. “He” is Ramsay Miller, a father who presumably killed his wife and 3-year-old daughter and disappeared. “Her” is the daughter–who is not dead after all. Fifteen years later, she comes out of hiding and begins looking for her father. Was he crazy when his wife was killed? Will father and daughter find each other? Unfortunately, it takes too long to find out, and listeners may lose patience. Whelan makes the wait less painful and by giving in-depth portraits of the characters and their soul-searching. The book’s ending is somewhat disappointing, but that’s not Whelan’s fault.”— AudioFile 2015