When I read for pleasure or just to kick back and relax, I try to read out of my genre. That said, becuase of my commute of an hour each way every day and an hour for lunch, I read 3-4 books a week. I try to write on the bus going in in the morning and at least a half hour at lunch. Going home the bus is packed and it’s just rude to keep elbowing the person next to you while you type away, even on a device as small as my Acer Aspire. So I read quite a bit. This week I picked up The Neighbor by Lisa Gardner. Talk about a psychological thriller that keeps you up at night! I had such a hard time putting it down there were not only a couple of late nights, but every spare minute, waiting for the bus, on line for coffee, waiting for the computer to boot up, were spent reading even just a page.

I did have a few issues with some of the references out of Say Goodbye, the prior release. It seemed to me that the timing of one of the victims in Say Goodbye didn’t jive with their age in The Neighbor. That said, the story is utterly compelling, mainly because of the hero.

Jason Jones isn’t your typical romance alpha — Lisa Gardner writes crime thrillers, not romance — but he could be one of those heroes you want to bring home with you. He has a slight gothic cast to his personality–you know, the brooding, wounded, dark hero you find in a good gothic. The guy who is misunderstood, knows he’s misunderstood but rather than hurt the one he loves buries his own emotions deep inside. Yet you see those emotions roiling so close to the surface you can taste them. That is Jason Jones.

I generally prefer books written in the third person. Too many first person books read like someone’s boring travelog after a vacation you had no interest in in the first place. There are a few first person writers I can’t get enough of — Kelley Armstrong, Suzanna Dunn for instance. But mostly I put them aside because I don’t find the person telling the story interesting at all. In The Neighbor Ms. Gardner writes in a combination of third and first person — and several of the key characters tell their own stories in the first person. I saw one author attempt that before — both characters read like the exact same person. You couldn’t tell them apart. With Ms. Garnder’s characters they are so distinct, have their own way of speaking and the bits of their personalities that not only they want you to see, but those that emerge when the character isn’t looking emerge.

I will be picking up her back list and looking forward to her next thriller.