New Book - The Other Daughter by Lisa Gardner (Pages 1 - 27)

 First Published: 1999

It is September 1977. 

In Texas a man is about to be executed after the death penalty is reinstated. That man is Russell Lee Holmes, and he has been sentenced to death for killing six children. The man is horrible and he does not show any signs of regrets. A reporter, Larry Digger, who has been following the story, wants to discover mor about Russell, that is, his past life as husband and father, but Russell won't tell him anything. 

The day of the execution apart from the officials, there are some relatives of the victims, namely Patricia and Brian Stokes. Russell killed Maegan Stokes, Patricia's four-year-old daughter, and she is there with her fourteen-year-old son as her husband is busy at work. Then Russell was executed.

At the same time this was happening, in a Boston hospital a freshman doctor Josh Sanders enters the room where he could rest after too many hours on duty, and he finds a little girl on a bed. She is having some kind of attack, and he calls an emergency. Nurses and doctors come, including Harper Stokes, who is the father of little Meagan, the girl killed by Russell. The little girl is having an anaphilactic attack to opiates which have been administered, and they finally manage to stop that attack.

Twenty years later Melanie Stoke is that little girl. Harper Stokes and his family adopted her, and from the first moment she knew she was replacing the daughter they had lost. That caused her some traumatic reaction, and it was a therapist who convinced the Stokes to let her be her own person. Now Melanie is getting ready for a reception her parents are giving.

Larry Digger, the reporter, has arrived in Boston. Two months ago he got an anonymous call, giving him information about Russell's secret daughter, and after tracking down the midwife, he finally discovered who the daughter is, so he is now ready to face the Stokes. It is obvious that the Stokes adopted the daughter of their daugher's killer. 

This was an intense start, and I think it is going to be a good book.