The Silent Victim: Dana Perry

A Silent Victim

Your world can change in seconds and the result will linger within you for a lifetime. Fear is a powerful weapon when someone uses it against you in order to make you look around you never knowing what will come next. A veil of darkness can cover your eyes and the sunshine will hide behind them as you try to overcome your past, something in your present and find a place where the shadows will help you hide from yourself and your nightmares.

Jessie Tucker is a crime reporter for the New York Tribune and was walking through Central Park and brutally attacked. Imagine begin left for dead and your last thoughts hoping someone will find you. The crime scene was assessed, and someone did find her but years later another murder happens in the same place and matches yours as the crime scene mirrors what happened to you. For 12 years Jessie has harbored her fears, worked the streets and sources get the facts and scoop on stories but even the fact that she survived the nightmares are still present, she walks with a limp a constant reminder of that night and the man she was supposed to marry and was engaged to decided to leave because of her physical conditions. Darry Jackson was the man senet to prison for her attack but as the story unfolds and we learn more about his confession and his interrogation you the reader along with Jessie will decide if justice was served or it has yet to be. Darryl confessed and was sent to prison but was killed there why? Jessie is a top crime reporter and the victim is Margaret Kincaid, the aide to a state senator. Margaret was having dinner with the senator’s son, her boyfriend, when she became upset, was on her cell phone talking to someone and seemed agitated, refused a cab or car service to take her home and winds up dead walking in the park. Joseph Enrico is the man that they suspected of her mugging and the police shot him even before he could answer one question. But evidence will come out, links to this murder, to the Senator, Enrico and even the father of this victim will enlighten Jessie as she goes after the answers that will help learn the truth behind this murder and her own attack. Margaret had a brother named Logan Kinkaid and this is where it gets interesting as it was implied that she was raped and killed but when Logan enlightens Jessie about one fact about his murder the shockwaves will hit, the lies and betrayals will come out and she goes on a one woman crusade for answers and she will not stop until she gets the closure she wants in her case, this one and one more. Did Darry Jackson really attack her? Did he rape her or was it someone else?

Jessie did not believe that Jackson was her attacker, but research allowed her to learn about another victim that never came forward. Her editor wanting her off the story about the killing in the park, Jessie determined to uncover what really happened to hers Frank Lansdale is a powerful man but appearances are deceiving, hidden truths and lies would be exposed and Jessie was determined to bring him down. Did Enrico kill the girl in the park? Why was he in New York. What is the connection to Santa Barbara , what about the cop who investigated the case?

As the clues seem to come together Jessie questions the Mayor about Lansdale, his affairs and then wonders what he might be hiding. Blackmail, extortion, jealousy, betrayal and political gain and power are at the heart of this terrifying plot as author Dana Perry created a diabolical killer whose motives and reasons were so well hidden that no one realizes just how dangerous this person is, just how invisible, and how well orchestrated the murders were each one so well planned out and always someone else taking the fatal fall.

Jessie even tries to establish a relationship with Logan Kincaid but unexpected reality about the death of his family might change it all . Who can she trust? Why won’t the police reopen her case and look further into the new murder? The surprises and twists established and the one secret revealed about Margaret Kincaid , why she was a political aide, her reasons for being agitated, why she was in the park and who she met are just part of a spider web of deception, a maze of murders leading in different directions as the final pieces will take Jessie to California, Ohio where she’s enlightened even more about the murder victim, letters that are damaging to someone’s career and a mother and daughter that never had a chance to say goodbye.

Angry at herself, blinded by her own fears, determined to learn more about the investigation into her attack, confrontations on many levels, Jessie Tucker puts herself in the crossfire of a dangerous killer whose motives for murder you won’t believe and whose deceptions and determination to keep those that got in her way permanently silenced making sure someone else took the fall but would never have the truth revealed.

Author Dana Perry /aka RG Belsky once again created a hardnosed crime reporter in the image of Claire Carlson an older journalist and version of Jessie who will fight , claw, bend the rules, lie if necessary and dig deep until a killer is found, those wronged exonerated and unravels the truths behind the power of politicians, their underhanded means of getting ahead and the do anything they want policy to come out ahead. Both Jessie and Claire are forced in the world of journalism and both will fight for the truth at all costs.

A mayor, a state senator, a corrupt police detective, two wives that just wanted to keep their marriages intact and two men that could not help but wander. The war in Iraq was the catalyst for some of the events in the present as Jessie Tucker relives her attack, vines face to face with the truth behind it and a dangerous killer but will she remain after all is said and done renewed, reborn or A Silent Victim? Friendships are torn part; her friend Ellen seems to be able to center her. She dealt with her problems and yet there would always be lose ends as to who killed the doctor who saved her life, what mental issues would remain with her and the fact that the author is a reporter and uses his real life experiences within all of his novels makes you understand how the police work, how editors deal with someone like both Jessie and Claire and why she at times was blindsided by those she thought she could trust. Will the strength that she shows, and her fortitude finally awaken within Jessie someone bold, brave and no longer a Silent Victim?

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