Review: exciting suspense novel
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 07 17, 2013
Michael Murray has written the suspenseful, action-filled story of a woman who has lost her memory from a gunshot wound to the head.  The Gift of the Dragon starts off with a bang, literally and figuratively.A man and his two teenage children, a boy and a girl, kill a man for trying to leave the `organization'.  The thirteen year-old girl delivers the fatal shot from a bullet that is made from a frozen drug that melts and then mimics a heart attach in the victim.Chapter two begins with two young women meeting at night on the bank of the Columbia river.  Sara has a dragon necklace that she must give to her friend Alice, a necklace that can never come into the hands of their enemies.Too late Sara realizes that she's been followed so she gives the necklace to Alice, and then leads the killer away and ends up being shot in the head. The killer then shots Alice in the head knocking her into the Columbia River.Alice manages to get away and out of the river, but has no memory of who she is, who her enemies are, and why a cheap necklace shaped like a dragon could possibly be worth dying for.Filled with action that never lets up and a conclusion that I never saw coming.  Very complex and interesting book, and Murray is a wonderful suspense writer.This is book one of a trilogy, and the only flaw from my point of view was that the novel is so complex, with characters that obviously have been explored in other books, that I was a little confused as to who was who, and what the dynamics were between the different characters.For instance; the characters in the first chapter of the book were very compelling, yet I never saw the two teenagers again.  It made me feel like the first chapter was unnecessary, and confusing to the reader.I didn't feel as though this was a stand-alone novel, but that the reader needed to know more than what the novel explained in order to fully enjoy the story line.  This is why the book only garnered 4 stars instead of 5 for the excellent writing and suspense that kept me interested throughout the whole story.This book was reviewed for AwesomeTrilogies.com