Review – Snapshot

Lis Wiehl, author and Fox News legal analyst releases Snapshot January 14th, an exciting account of murder and conspiracy with a dash of historical narrative. While past events, the faded photo and Lis’s FBI agent father are real, the rest are constructs of this author’s remarkable imagination. She begins her fictionalized account years after the original photograph was taken, a picture the main character Lisa now holds in her hand. 

Lisa recognized herself as the fair-skinned child in the picture and took pride in the years of hard work and education that led to her career as a federal prosecutor. Yet, in all those years, from her own graduations to her son’s birth to his graduation she hadn’t heard from her father until he called last week and asked for her help to “right a wrong.” Although she hadn’t agreed he had sent the picture she now held in her hand.

The faded black and white snapshot showed two little girls sitting on a raised concrete block, surrounded by adults carrying signs that read “Freedom Now” in bright red letters. Lisa remembered the event and the dark skinned girl, especially holding four fingers up to her and saying, “I’m four.”

When the little girl did the same the memory of them leaning “close, smiling and talking as if already friends” brought a smile. She couldn’t remember the girl’s name, wasn’t sure she’d ever known it and was certain neither of them understood they were what the “day’s event,” a 1965 Civil Rights rally, was all about.   

However, Lisa’s father, Special Agent Waldren was keenly aware of the signs, the marchers and the neighborhood that few white people ventured into as he continued to snap the picture he would one day send to his daughter. Although a trained FBI agent he couldn’t know his daughter and her new friend would witness the murder of a well-known African-American and the false accusation of another. Until the first “gunshot pierced the air…then another…” and fear and pandemonium ensued. 

Thus begins a fast-paced mystery of an FBI agent father-daughter year’s long estrangement, wrapped around a faded photograph and a man falsely accused and prosecuted just days from execution. Add a missing antique desk, locked drawers, missing keys, family secrets and the assassinations of President Kennedy and his brother Bobby to the mix and the book is impossible to set down until finished!  

Snapshot is the twelfth mystery-suspense from this Harvard educated attorney and it’s also a non-series title without a co-author like the terrific Triple Threat, East Salem and Mia Quinn series have. Although the series titles are well-done, tension-filled mysteries, Snapshot left me feeling Lis invested more of herself in this book, perhaps because of the picture that inspired the story. There’s more depth to the characters and a subtle continuity to the fast-paced narrative and relevant storylines. I hope this is the first of many “inspired” books from this talented author.

The 1965 photographs that inspired the story, a personal note from Lis and thoughts from award-winning journalist, Juan Williams and Fox News television host, Bill O’Reilly complete the book.