The Crossing: A good, suspenseful read

The book “The Crossing” deals with old wounds that just won’t heal. When Claudia was on the high school cheerleading squad, she was riding home on the bus with the cheerleading squad and the football team, and a masked gunman boarded the bus and shot three people: the bus driver, the star quarterback, and the beautiful young teacher who coached the cheerleading squad. Claudia had developed a close friendship with the coach, BJ, and when BJ was shot by the mysterious gunman, Claudia refused to leave her side, begging BJ not to die.

“The Crossing” is set ten years later. Claudia has married and has a daughter, but memories of the shooting still plague her through nightmares, flashbacks and panic attacks. Her husband, an assistant district attorney, sees her struggles and tries to help by reopening the case. Claudia doesn’t see it the same way. She sees him reopening the wounds, and starts to withdraw from the marriage.

I don’t want to say any more and give away the ending. I found myself drawn into the book. I had a hard time putting it down, wanting to find out who the masked gunman was, and why he was targeting a loveable young woman like BJ. Usually, I have the guilty party figured out halfway through a book, but this book threw me a curve or two. There were several plot twists that took me by surprise. I liked that!

While the book was much “cleaner” than your average murder mystery (no profanity or sex scenes), one thing  bothered me a bit: the sheer number of characters in the book who were having affairs or premarital sex.  I didn’t like the way it seemed sexual sin seemed to be portrayed as fairly common, even though the characters identified themselves as good, church-going folk. Most of the characters acknowledged their wrongdoing, and the book showed that there were consequences for the sin, which was good… but it just seemed too prevalent for my tastes.

Overall, I would say that “The Crossing” was a good, suspenseful read.

I received this book from Multnomah books in exchange for my honest review.