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LACY EYE by Jessica Treadway

LACY EYE

by Jessica Treadway

Pub Date: March 10th, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-5407-2
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Treadway checks in with this novel about family, emotional wounds and blind love. 

Hanna cheated death three years ago when an intruder came into her Everton, New York, home and beat her accountant husband, Joe, to death as the two were sleeping, but she was left with physical scars and traumatic brain injury. Now the man believed to be their attacker, Rud Petty, has won an appeal and will be getting a new trial, and Hanna is being asked to testify though she doesn't remember the night of the attack. Rud was the boyfriend of Hanna and Joe's daughter Dawn, who's now living in Santa Fe and trying to start a new life. While the prosecutor, Gail Nazarian, tries to make Hanna take the stand, Hanna starts to convince herself that the man she saw the night Joe died wasn’t Rud but Emmett Furth, a troubled neighbor boy. To the horror of her eldest daughter, Iris, she welcomes Dawn back into her home. Although a grand jury failed to indict Dawn—who has always been odd—many, including Nazarian and Iris, believe she was involved in the attack. Treadway carefully constructs a scenario in which a mother is asked to believe that her child could not only be an accessory to her husband’s coldblooded killing, but has ulterior motives in coming to visit her. Wading knee deep in the suspicions of others, Hanna continues to defend Dawn even though Dawn’s own dodgy behavior makes her a perfect suspect. Treadway’s book is an excellent exploration of the agony that often accompanies parenthood, but every now and then, readers will find themselves wanting to smack some common sense into Hanna.

A worthwhile story marred by a terrible title.