Woman with a Gun, By Philip Margolin

A story about a novelist writing a story about a picture. What a unique concept. The picture on the front cover is a photograph in an art gallery on the East Coast. It captures the eye of Stacy Kim, a receptionist at a law firm, but an aspiring writer. She is intrigued by the picture and wants to know the story behind it so that she can write a novel based on the events.

Margolin, then takes us back to the story behind the picture. He takes us to the evening that Raymond Cahill is murdered. His wife Megan is the woman holding the gun, standing on the beach, still wearing her wedding dress from the events of earlier in the day. She has no memory of what happened. She was hit on the head and has lost all thoughts of what went on.

A neighbor, Sally Moran, happens by on her way home from work, a camera in hand, because she is a photographer, and she snaps the picture of Megan holding the gun.

The book then goes into the investigation about the murder. Not only is there one murder but then another in quick succession. But neither will get solved as the one witness can't remember a thing.

Then we switch to ten years later and Stacy Kim arriving on the scene, in Oregon, wanting to interview those involved in the murder and in the taking of the picture. What she doesn't know is that she will stir up long kept secrets and that murder will start again as the killer wants to keep the secret hidden.

The novel is very intriguing. It is unique and has plenty of unanswered questions throughout the book that will keep you guessing and working at figuring out who the real killer is and what the motive was.

I guarantee that you will enjoy this and that the real answers, while they may appear easy to figure out, will actually turn out to be hard to finalize and the motive, well that will be even harder to guess until the end.

Enjoy!