Book Review: "It Takes One" by Kate Kessler

"It Takes One" by Kate Kessler comes out April 26, 2016 and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all fans of psychological thrillers. When I put in to review this book I had high hopes, the synopsis made it sound like a delicious read. I'm so darn glad I was right! I haven't read something so psychological for at least a year so this was a real treat.

Audrey Harte is now a successful criminal psychologist working in L.A., one would never guess that she was once just like the youths she now studies. When Audrey was thirteen she and Maggie murdered Maggie's father. The question that has haunted Audrey ever since is "what would you do for someone you loved?". When her best friend confesses that her father is molesting her all Audrey wants to do is rescue her best friend, to stop the abuse, and when no one in town believes that Maggie's father could rape his own daughter it becomes Audrey's job to come to the rescue. That one decision changes the lives of many people around both girls.

Seven years after Audrey left the little town of Edgeport, Maine she flying back for her mother's birthday. Audrey's dreading all the home town gossip that has followed her since that fateful night so many years ago. She is unsurprised to find that nothing seems to have changed in the intervening years. Audrey is in a fight with a drunken Maggie within hours of arriving home. Her father is still an alcoholic, her mother is still enabling and her sister still blames Audrey for everything. Her only solace is seeing Jake, the one that got away. Audrey is full of regrets and can't see how this trip could ever get worse until Maggie turns up murdered on the beach. Someone has bashed her head in just like Audrey and Maggie did to Maggies father so many years ago. So starts a winding mystery that is more psychological drama, intrigue and angst than whodunnit.

I loved how this book was so character centered. In a little over four hundred pages I came to care about the people Ms. Kessler introduced me to. The writing is so strong and so emotionally engaging that it only takes one book to fall in love with her complex cast of characters. Only a few times in my reading life have I come across such a strong literary writer. My last love affair with a writer was Robert A. Heinlein. He's well known as the father of Sci-fi but what I found most compelling was that the science fiction he wrote about always played second fiddle to his character development. He too, with one book, could make you memorize characters. He made the reader feel like these people existed in real life somewhere. They had to be because you cared so much and knew so much about their lives, their thoughts and their heart.

This rare gift is what makes me love this author, Kate Kessler. I will endeavor to read every book she's written and I hope this book, "It Takes One", is the first in a series because I don't want to let Audrey Harte go. I want to know how her life continues. I know you'll love her too, she's complex, straightforward and real. She'll grow and change, leaving the reader wanting more each time they step into one of the mysteries that features her. What an exciting find that author is, you have to try this book!
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