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Lunch » Tags » Books » Reviews » On Borrowed Time: A Mystery by David Rosenfelt

On Borrowed Time: A Mystery by David Rosenfelt

1 rating: 4.0

A mystery book about a man who seems to have memory problems about a woman who may or may not have existed

At the start of this excellent stand-alone from Rosenfelt (Down to the Wire), 29-year-old journalist Richard Kilmer is planning to ask the love of his life, Jennifer Ryan, to marry him. But on a drive from Manhattan's Upper West Side, where they … see full wiki

Tags: Books, Cafe Libri, Mystery, Novel, Memory

1 review about On Borrowed Time: A Mystery by David Rosenfelt

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A Good Mystery to Keep the Reader Guessing Throughout

Apr 18, 2011

by MichaelN
posted in Cafe Libri: Reviewing Books & More

Exclusive to the Lunch Network

Rating:

The book begins like a Twilight Zone episode (Think Richard Long as David Guerny, whom nobody could remember existing). Richard Kilmer is in love with a woman (Jen) and while staying with her at her parent's house he proposes. She accepts and to celebrate she wants to take him to the Falls to see something interesting. On the drive there, a storm seems to come out of nowhere and forces Kilmer to lose control of the car and it tumbles off the road.

Kilmer is out of the car relatively fast and unsuccessfully tries to locate Jen. He takes the police back to her parent's house and find's Jen's mother doesn't know him or Jen and her husband has been dead for about 20 years. The house looks different inside too. Richard tries talking to other people that knew Jen and finds that nobody ever heard of her.

He goes back home and his friends seem to not remember Jen and Richard's apartment looks the way it did before Jen had moved in). Also, there are things that have transpired that Richard cannot remember. Did Jen really exist?
Richard writes a magazine article about his experience with a sketch of Jen, hoping someone will remember her. A woman who looks just like Jen (Allie) comes looking for Richard saying that the sketch of Jen looks like her twin sister Julie who mysteriously vanished.

Allie and Richard start looking for Jen/Julie and the more Richard spends time with Allie, he realizes that she says and does many things exactly the same as Jen did. Could Allie be Jen. Meanwhile all of Richard's moves are being watched by a guy who works for someone named The Stone. Apparently, the Stone has used Richard in some way and wants Richard to help get him rich.

As Richard and Allie start investigating, some people they talk to end up dead. The reader is kept guessing until pretty much the end of the book before all will be revealed. The author does an excellent job confusing the reader throughout and make it difficult to guess what is really happening.

When Richard narrates his chapters he kind of sounds like Andy Carpenter , the wise cracking lawyer that appears in many of the author's other books. I did not give the book a full five stars because I felt that some loose ends were not fully tied up and some of the explanations of what had transpired are a little sketchy. Overall it is an well above average mystery.

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