Reading Pat Bertram Gets Better and Better!

More Deaths Than One


By Pat Bertram




I laughed with Pat while reading Daughter Am I, was scared by what happened in A Spark of Heavenly Fire, sighed with Pat's Light Bringer (Click to read my reviews of the other books!)...


But, Wow! I sat in amazed suspense as I read More Deaths Than One...


The first reason I was amazed was that each of Pat's books are so uniquely different,  The second was that, for me, this, last book was a mystery/suspense--my preferred reading--and therefore the most enjoyable...so far! I do hope she continues writing! Her imagination and creativity is exciting and diverse--readers may not be able to rely on what each book will cover, but we can be sure that it will be top rate!

Meet Robert Stark... He is a character like no other you will ever meet, but you will remember him even if you've just met him through this book. He's shy, average in all ways and lives in a boarding house with few, if any, friends. Sometimes. Sometimes he's completely different. We soon find out that he's just returned to Denver, Colorado, after having lived in Thailand since he was serving in the military during the Vietnam war...


After arriving in town, he soon meets Kerry, a waitress who, one day, started talking to him as soon as she waited on him rather than her usual request for what he wanted...and then, whenever he came to the restaurant. One day, as he was now somewhat acquainted to her, he asked what she would do if she had seen an obituary for his mother, who had already died years ago. She said she would go to the funeral--so he did. There he saw his brother. He also saw himself, married to his long-ago girlfriend with kids...


And the mystery began...As he began to try to understand his family situation, he realized that he was being followed and that the men were trying to capture him.  Somehow he would always elude them...


Kerry and he were becoming closer and during a conversation explained to Bob that the author of a book they'd been discussing was dead. At first Bob couldn't believe it but shared that they had been as close as brothers. Further, that a book Bob had known he was working on had already been published, so that much that Bob had thought was top secret had already been shared across the world...


One of the things that had happened when Bob had decided to come back to the States was that he began to have severe headaches and he began to have nightmares. Bob was also beginning to paint again, but he began to notice that somewhere in each painting, there was some addition that he didn't remember painting...the latest a creepy hand coming out of a bush...


Since Bob continued to be followed and knew that his place had been searched, he began his own investigation, which ultimately led to a company, ISI. A minor character, a street man who was seen by most people as crazy and to be avoided, had been befriended by Bob and was the key to how Bob was able to infiltrate this research facility. Not only did he begin to gather information, he also saw the men who had been following him. Finally, Bob decided he had to go back to Thailand, to where everything seemed to have started...By that time, he and Kerry were involved and she quit her job so traveled with him.


One decision by the author proved to end this story in a unique way, one that responded to the need to provide a satisfying conclusion without going into the gory details that took place. The surprise ending was not totally unexpected, since the writer had shown us over and over that there was something strange going on...But I had no clue what it was until the last major revelation was made... Leaving out the action of those final days or weeks, leaves the reader with the romantic suspense as the primary plot line One that is memorable and, at the same time, allows us to get past what actually happened...which was too horrendous to dwell on. 


Kudos to Pat Bertram for effectively presenting this strange but plausible tale! If you've already read Bertram, you should consider this a must-read! Highly recommended!  



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About the Author

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book -- character and story driven novels that can't easily be slotted into a genre -- she decided to write her own. Second Wind Publishing liked her style and published four of Bertram's books: Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Bertram blogs about writing and the writing life at http://ptbertram.wordpress.com.

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