Title: Mirror Image
Author: Sandra Brown
Publication date: June 1990
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 9780446353953
Genre: Mystery, Romantic Suspense
I have always been intrigued by storylines on mistaken identity, so when I was browsing through the works of Sandra Brown, I naturally jumped on this one. I’d read only one book of hers before titled ‘Envy’, which had had me hooked till the very end. Brown is known for her romantic novels but she also has given suspense filled page-turners. It’s been a while since I read a mystery novel and was gratifyingly wrapped up with the book till the end.
The lives of two women with interesting histories are completely wrecked following a plane crash, where one is killed and the other is terribly injured and disfigured. When the survivor is mistaken for the dead woman, things go out-of-hand when the former could make no attempt to the mix up owing to her immobility. The dexterity of a plastic surgeon who rebuilt her mutilated face, never realised he was designing the face of Carole Rutledge, wife of handsome Senate candidate, Tate Rutledge on Avery Daniels, impulsive reporter. What happens after the surgery and who she chooses to live us after knowing that there are assassination plans on Tate forms a gripping plot of tension, mystery and deceit with romantic trysts strewn at intervals.
The plot revolves around the family of Tate Rutledge spelling honour and nobility on the outside but reeking of dysfunctionality on the inside. The working of a campaign before an election has been given considerable description. We appreciate Avery for her integrity of character and are compelled to hail her as a heroine. The journalist in her has a tendency to put her in trouble and pays a heavy price for her inadvisable emotional attachments to her news stories. What she does to redeem herself, forms the crux of the plot.
Suspicion shifts from person to person throughout the novel, as is to be expected from a solid mystery thriller and is not revealed till the very end. I remember getting annoyed that the there was no gradual revelation of the killer through the chapters to curb my growing curiosity but a staggering revelation in the climax, left me slightly dazed.
~ Fahima Yousouf
A Writer's Retreat 