Book Review: A Twisted Ladder by Rhodi Hawk

released August 31, 2010

 
A Twisted Ladder was one of the first books I picked up at the SIBA Trade Show a couple of weeks ago. I had the privilege of attending a panel where Ms. Hawk was the moderator for several authors who had written books about the South. There was a gothic mystery author (Ms. Hawk), southern literary fiction (Ms. Anna Jean Mayhew), biographer (Ms. Ellen Brown), true murder mystery (Mr. Richard Jay Hutto) and non-fiction historical account (Mr. Jay Jennings) - a true southern mixture! Although she did not mention her book hardly at all, I was fascinated by Ms. Hawk's ability to moderate such a wide variety of authors on the panel. Her questioning was thorough and brought about a discussion amongst the group that kept us all entertained and interested for the entire workshop.


I was so anxious to begin reading A Twisted Ladder, partly because of the cover, partly because of the RIP challenge and it being October, partly because I'm studying psychology, and partly because the story just sounded so engrossing!



first lines ~

Something moved beneath the kitchen wallpaper. Madeleine was holding the phone to her ear as she tapped the spot with the back of her wooden spoon, half-expecting some kind of response under there. A skitter, perhaps, or another shift. But no. She just stared and listened to nothing while Marc waited on the line.

The story opens with Madeleine LeBlanc talking to her brother on the phone. She is in the mansion in New Orleans they both inherited while he is at the shack in the swamp they inherited and both grew up in. Madeleine is a psychologist who has devoted her life to finding a cure or at least something that will help her father's cognitive schizophrenia/paranoid schizophrenia. Her electrician brother spends his days out on the bayou since an 'accident' occurred on the job.

Growing up Madeleine and Marc had to take care of themselves at Black Bayou on the Louisiana Bayou. Their mother left when they were in grade school and their father would leave them for a week and months at a time to take care of each other when he had his schizophrenic episodes.

This particular night when Marc calls he is asking for Madeleine to come visit him at the Bayou which she does after having dinner with their father and his guest, Ethan. When she arrives she finds the house in complete disarray and the boat and a gun gone. Suspecting something is horribly wrong, she borrows a neighbor's boat and goes to their secret hiding place in the bayou where she finds her brother's body.

The story continues with Madeleine trying to put the pieces together of why her brother would commit suicide. She finds clues that send her to a relative she did not know she had who is 114 years old, but who has watched Madeleine and Marc's movements throughout their lives. This woman calls Madeleine's father's sickness the 'river demon.' The story begins to move between New Orleans 2009 and 1912 - the story of Madeleine and the story of the relative.....and the 'river demon.'

This was a thoroughly enjoyable read with voodoo, river demons, murder, psychological thrill and everything you would want in a novel to keep you up most of the night reading and with all the lights on! I only hope there is going to be a book no. 2!

for more information on Rhodi Hawk visit her site
to read the first chapter of A Twisted Ladder click here

 

  

I received this book at the SIBA Trade Show from the author and publisher with my sincere thanks. This in no way affects my opinion or review.