Review – Fatal Deduction

As Fatal Deduction opens, we find twin sisters Libby and Tori Burton moving into their Aunt Stella’s old Philadelphia home. Aunt Stella has required the estranged twins to live together for six months in order to inherit the home and the aunt’s sizeable estate. Not a problem for most twins who are often in sync with one another, but Tori and Libby have very little in common and frequently find themselves in turmoil, often as a result of Libby’s faith and Tori’s lack there of.

Tori is right at home in the big city but Libby, along with her daughter Chloe, are more at home in the suburbs. Imagine Libby’s fright when on the first morning in the house, she stumbles across a dead body on their doorstep. A dead body holding a crossword puzzle that implicates her twin in the murder. Though not a fan of her sister or her lifestyle, Libby pockets the clue to protect Tori from a murder accusation. And keeps protecting her as more puzzles arrive in interesting ways.

Drew Canfield – neighbor, Ben Franklin scholar, father to teenager daughter Jenna and the stories love interest – partners with Libby and the pair works through serious life issues all the while moving forward on solving the interesting crossword puzzle mystery. Not only does a special relationship develop between Drew and Libby but Jenna and Chloe become fast friends, too.

Though classified as a suspense book and there is a suspense plot as the main story, I found Fatal Deduction to focus more on interpersonal relationships artfully depicted by Roper. Roper attacks issues like divorce, parenting, family betrayal and underhanded attempts to buy affection of an impressionable teen.

A story like this one, filled with dysfunctional families and the problems caused by their behavior, could be overpowered by the issues, but Fatal Deduction doesn’t bog down in heavy character studies. The story moves along at a fast pace and holds your interest until the very end, keeping you pulling for the characters as they work through their struggles. This is a well crafted story that you won’t want to miss.