A.L Gaylin: What remains of me, Arrow (Penguin Random
House), paperback, 9781784756192, September 22, 2016 (hardback 9780062369857, William Morrow, available)
The author A.L. Gaylin worked as a journalist
for a celebrity tabloid and was nominated for the Edgar for her first novel, “Hide
your Eyes”. One can attribute her talent of spinning a
twisted story set amongst Hollywood celebrity teenagers and the quality of her
writing to both of these facts with her latest book ”What remains of me”. It is
also a perfect summer read, too bad the paperback will only be published in September;
the hardback is out already, also available as a download for EBook readers.
When seventeen year old Kelly Michelle Lund
shoots and kills Oscar nominated director John McFadden at a party in his home,
she becomes an immediate media star. She
refuses to reveal her motive why she shot this famous celebrity and with an
incompetent defense by her lawyer at her trial she ends up spending the next 25
years in prison.
What makes this book so thrilling is that the
writing is done with two story lines running parallel in alternating chapters.
One set in 1980, leading up to the very day when Kelly shoots McFadden and the
other 30 years later, in 2010, when she is a free person again, living quietly
with her husband Shane Marshall in their house in Joshua tree desert outside of
Hollywood. Shane is no other than the younger brother of her former best friend
Bellamy Marshall, both Hollywood royalty and part of the gang she hung out with
before the tragic event. Their father and now Kelly’s father-in-law is movie
legend Sterling Marshall who one day is found dead in his home, shot very much
in the same fashion as John McFadden. It doesn’t take very long before the
police are suspecting Kelly of having committed this second murder particularly
since Marshall and McFadden were best friends. This time however a few people
from her past believe she is innocent, one a tabloid journalist, all trying to
help her to prove her innocence? Or is
she guilty after all one asks oneself the more pages one turns?
It was absolutely fascinating to uncover
secrets from Kelly’s youthful past with each alternating chapter: her troubled and
controlling mother, a sweet and weak father, the death of her sister Catherine,
the lives of some seriously disturbed Hollywood kids she hung out with and how
these deeds from the past still reverberate into her present life. The book holds many surprises, discovering some
sad and heart wrenching truth until the very end.
