Book review: The Abortionist's Daughter by Elisabeth Hyde

Book description:

Two weeks before Christmas, Diana Duprey, an outspoken abortion doctor, is found floating in her pool, a bruise the size of a golf ball visible through her dark curls. A national figure, Diana inspired passion and ignited tempers, never more so than on the day of her death.

Her husband, Frank, an attorney in the D.A.’s office for more than twenty years, had fought bitterly with her on the day of her murder. Yet to reveal the nature of their fight would cost him not only his career but something greater still—a relationship he will go to any lengths to protect. Diana’s daughter, Megan, a college freshman, had also quarreled with Diana that day, and her role in her mother’s murder will prove more significant than she ever could have anticipated. The Reverend Stephen O’Connell, founder of the town’s pro-life coalition, obviously had issues with Diana, but his anger extended beyond the political to the personal—namely, Dr. Duprey’s involvement with his own troubled teenager. Meanwhile, the detective on the case grapples to make sense of it all. His investigation implicates many in this town and reveals a series of gross miscalculations, each one challenging what we know, or think we know, about community, fidelity, justice, and love.

And so the book begins:

The problem was. Megan had just taken the second half of the ecstasy when her father called with the news.

The history in this book takes place in a small town in Colorado, USA. Like in any other town in this world many of the towns inhabitants has got their own dark little secrets. One of these dark secrets has lead to a fatal obsession. We meet 19 year old Megan and her father, Frank. Once upon a time they belonged to a family of four, now Megan and Frank are the only ones left of their little family. Megan once had a little brother named Ben, he died very young, and now her mother, Diana, is killed. Diana was running her own abortion clinic, a job that guranteed

My opinion:

It was kind of weird opening up the newspaper the day after I started reading The Abortionist's Daughter see an article about an abortionist being killed in Kansas, USA.

I'm going to be completely honest, I didn't have a clue to what this book was about when I bought it. The cover was the main reason for me picking it up, yes, yes, I know it is shallow of me. I was a bit surprised when started reading and found out that this was a suspense/mystery book.

The abortionist's daughter touches several hot topics, such as abortion, pornography and drugs. For me it was the use of the topic abortion that made this book to something more than just a suspense/mystery novel. The reader gets a little insight in the medical procedure around an abortion, I''m not working in the health care sector but the information seems believable to me.

It is heartbreaking to see how the different characters in this book analyzes their own their choices and who they perhaps somehow could have done something to prevent Diana from being murdered. Elisabeth Hyde makes this feel very real, I believe that this kind of soul searching comes naturally in these kind of situations.

I really enjoyed Melanie as a character, even though I couldn't relate much to her, except for the quarreling with her mum part(I love my mum, but of course we had some feuds when I was in my teens but nothing big). Still I know that there are girls out there who has experienced many of the same things or at least has similar experiences as Melanie; being persuaded to do stupid things while in love and trying out drugs.

Overall this book was okay, I passed it on to another Norwegian book blogger who I knew wanted to read it and after reading the book and throwing the dice she gave the book a fiver. I didn't enjoy the book as much as she did and I'm giving it 3,5 points out of 5.

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• Think 360 Art(it was really difficult to find information about Elizabeth Hyde online - feel free to make suggestions if you have a better one!)