Parallel Lies
   Ridley Pearson
   (Guest Reviewer - Sandi von Pier)
  2001 Hyperion
    ISBN: 0786865644


Every time a train derails, images fill the TVs with sound-bytes from the railroad companies offering reasons behind these accidents: “Driver error,” “mechanical failure” & “a failed signal.” Are they telling the truth?

Guest Reviewer Sandi von Pier writes:

Ever see what a penny looks like after it's been run over by a train? Umberto Alvarez lost his wife & twins in a fatal railroad accident. The lights & barriers at the crossing where the family van was stuck didn't work. Alvarez blames Northern Union Railroad for the crossing-guard collision -- he believes there has been a massive cover-up.

Northern Union Railroad claims everything was working fine & Alvarez's wife was negligent. With the disappearance of the 911 tape of Alvarez's call things were not looking good, then his attorney turns up murdered & now Alvarez is on the run & out for revenge.

Peter Tyler, an ex-homicide detective with a debilitating dislike for confined spaces, is now an investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, where he uses his cop's intuition to investigate a bloody boxcar mystery.

Nell Priest is with Northern Union Security. A smart, attractive, African-American woman who knows Tyler's history. She is sent to investigate the same bloody scene.

William Goheen, owner of Northern Union Railroad & creator of the F-A-S-T Track train, due to take it's maiden voyage from New York to Washington, D.C. wants to shut Alvarez up & everything else to go away. Goheen's rails reach farther than the next railway station. He will stop at nothing -- making the 911 tapes disappear, using an old marine buddy who just happens to be Tyler's boss & his charismatic daughter who has secrets that wouldn't make Daddy happy.

Looking for the same answer, Tyler & Priest, begin to work together to uncover what happened in that boxcar & they uncover much, much more. Priest finds out that her upper echelon has conveniently left out a lot of information. Wanting to believe the good in all people, Priest begins to think that maybe Tyler is right about a cover-up.

Then a body turns up in a crime scene that eerily mimics the one that precipitated Tyler's suspension.

Pearson's writing is so clear that I could picture Tyler in his rental car with the top down in a snowstorm & feel like I was on that train, sitting across the aisle from Alvarez, watching Tyler walk by & sense Alvarez's tension. Then another time when Tyler hid between the frozen water & the pool cover ... well, that was too creepy!

How is that boxcar, Alvarez, Northern Union Railroad & Tyler all connected? Grab this one & follow the bloody tracks! Pearson keeps the pages turning with the adrenaline rush of the chase. He keeps you guessing as to who are the good guys & who are the bad. I got caught up in the twists & turns of this skilled writer. I've not read anything by Pearson before – I couldn't put it down!

I never cross a closed railroad barrier but, thanks to Pearson, I'll be sure now to look both ways before I even cross open tracks. Don't miss this one!

More from Ridley Pearson: Blood of the Albatross; Probable Cause; Hard Fall; The Angel Maker; No Witnesses; Chain of Evidence; Beyond Recognition; The Pied Piper; The First Victim; Middle of Nowhere & Undercurrents.
(07/08/01)

Sandi von Pier
A RebeccasReads.com Guest Reviewer