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Barbara Delinsky started her career writing romances. TWILIGHT WHISPERS is a reissue of her first mainstream novel, which originally was published in 1987. As far as this reviewer is concerned, her first foray into mainstream fiction was a success and led the way to other books that showed her craft as a writer.
The story opens with the funeral of Mark Whyte and his wife, Deborah Warren. The two had been found on a boat, shot to death, and the press is labeling it as a murder/suicide. Investigator Robert Cavanaugh, however, is at the funeral looking for clues that may lead to what really happened on that boat. Taking photos and watching the individual members of both families in attendance at the funeral, the story initially takes Cavanaugh's point of view, but eventually changes voices, alternating among some of the other main characters.
The press is going hog wild over this case, due to the fact that the Whytes and the Warrens are two very wealthy and powerful families. In some ways they resemble the Kennedys, with the patriarchs of each family being very strong and powerful men in their own right, while their children are following in their footsteps in one way or another. The double murders signal a downturn in the fortunes of these two families, and there are those who are glad to see this happen. Both men have hurt plenty of people during their rise to the top.
At the funeral are the three families that are connected to Mark and Deborah. The heads of the Whyte family, Jackson Whyte, and his wife Natalie are there with their adult children. So are the heads of the Warren family, Senator Gil Warren and his wife Lenore and their children. Cassie Morrell, who had been in charge of the Warren household for decades, and her daughter Katia represent the third family.
Katia, thirty years old, is the youngest of the children who lived on the Whyte-Warren estates, and was raised with the Whyte and Warren children, even though she was born to the hired help. Cavanaugh also notices that she seems to have a special relationship with one of the Whyte siblings, Jordan Whyte, who at the age of 39 is showing that he is following in his father's footsteps in more ways than one. With the help of his boss, John Ryan, Cavanaugh has a huge file of newspaper clippings and other journalistic articles that will aide him in the search for the answers to this murder mystery. Cavanaugh becomes obsessed with their history, living and breathing the case until it begins to disrupt his personal life.
While the book starts off as a murder mystery, the bulk of this story is the history behind the three families. Victims of the Depression, both Natalie and Lenore grew up without much, but somehow find their futures with Gilbert Warren and Jackson Whyte, two men who were best friends and were going to move up fast in the world. Cassie finds that her life changes when she is hired by the Warrens to run their household. She eventually marries, and now her family is intertwined with the close-knit Whytes and Warrens.
Delinsky moves the story along at a fast pace, delving into family secrets and relationships that are slowly revealed to the reader. There IS closure to the murder mystery, which this reviewer felt was settled a bit too quickly. But in reading a Delinsky novel, the ending is not always necessarily the most important aspect of the book. The many characters that fill the pages and make the story come alive are really what drive her novels. Delinsky's biggest talent is creating characters who are lifelike, three-dimensional figures who one can imagine in their heads. They are real people, not made-up caricatures that one often finds in novels.
TWILIGHT WHISPERS is, above all else, a family saga with a romance built in and the added excitement of a murder mystery that the reader will want to solve. The fact that this book was first published in 1987 doesn't seem to make a difference in the enjoyment of the story today; it does indeed stand the test of time. This reviewer highly recommends TWILIGHT WHISPERS.
--- Reviewed by Marie Hashima Lofton (Ratmammy@lofton.org)
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