Donan Berg's "All's Forgiven" is a captivating mystery that keeps the reader guessing until the very end, writes a Five-Star reviewer. A family drama unfolds as-thirty-two-year-old Jenny Olsen's life descends into chaos. Jenny is injured in a hit-and accident that hospitalizes her young niece. Thieves kidnap her mother and demand a ransom. Amidst family disputes and inner turmoil, romance tantalizes's her heart.
Jenny Olsen flees wintry Iowa to the New Orleans Mardi Gras to dull her past and present, at least for a week. Injured in a hit-and-run automobile accident that hospitalizes her young niece, Jenny weathers family rancor by running away on a pre-booked holiday bus tour.
Puzzling turmoil finds her.
In Jenny's tossed hotel room lies a Pelican Bar napkin. She's never visited the Louisiana bar, nor knows anyone who has.
On a tour excurion to a Mississippi River delta riverboat casino, she meets a handsome, unmaed stranger at the blackjack table.
Back home, her mother is kidnapped for ransom. Jenny and her quarrelsome sister, along with local police help, botch the ransom payoff.
In addition to rescueing Jenny's mother, Jenny focuses on an also missing treasured Queen Elizabeth heirloom brooch.
Professional Reviews
Trust No One, but Revel in the Mystery
Donan Berg’s All’s Forgiven is one of those wild mysteries that keeps the reader guessing to the very end. Much of the lively engagement of constantly shifting suspicions comes from the novel centering on the viewpoint of Jenny Olsen, who’s a bit loopy and is recovering from an accident that also led to the death of her niece Eileen. Jenny is often uncertain and reader more so. I can never fully trust her intense, emotional sister Ruth, her gruff Uncle John, the police officer and possible love interest Robert, and the urbane, mysterious professor Holmes, who also might be another love interest. The plot involving that niece’s death, car accidents, a valuable brooch from Queen Elizabeth’s inauguration, and, most importantly, the kidnapping of Jenny’s mother percolates along with amusing interactions and disarming twists.
The novel is filled with gothic elements, including the mysterious basements at home and at the bookstore where Jenny works. Berg plays with these subterranean notions which such lines as, “For Jenny, someone might well padlock her future behind the wall, never to be revived.” A single boot that may or may not belong to Jenny’s kidnapped mother, a missing garage key, and that brooch whose history and provenance vex and confound are situated around a group of characters prone to lying and keeping their counsel at inconvenient intervals. That Jenny’s bookstore borders on Riddle Jewelry where sister Ruth works adds another layer of proximity to their sibling tensions.
Little wonder Jenny makes asides like, “Afraid my memory gets jittery.” Oh, the revelations keep coming in a novel that subtly considers what is counterfeit and what is genuine. Without giving too much away, the reader is guessing right up to the final pages, where he discovers he’d been given sufficient clues all along. He was just to wrapped up in the crazy family drama and the bizarre combinations of romance and manipulation to center his pleasures on piecing together the puzzle. Donan Berg has given us quite a yarn across a snowy lowan landscape, one that keeps the reader involved and intrigued throughout.
Five Stars
Author Michael P. Hartnett
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