"Poignant family drama"

New York book editor Katie Wilkinson believed that she found her soul mate in poet-house painter Matt Harrison. However, instead of a lifetime together, they share a year before Matt vanishes. After disappearing from her life, Matt mails Katie a diary written by his wife Suzanne.

Katie cannot help but read the journal that Suzanne has written to her and Matt's son. She explains how she was a yuppie doctor in Boston until she suffered a heart attack in her mid thirties. Knowing she needed a lifestyle change, Suzanne fled to Martha's Vinyard where she falls in love with Matt. They marry and have a child. As she reads, Katie begins to feel she knows Suzanne and Nicholas as old friends. Still even she wonders if she should try to see Matt one last time once she finishes the cherished diary lovingly written by a mother to a son?

Fans of James Patterson's powerful Cross mysteries will find SUZANNE'S DIARY FOR NICHOLAS quite a departure for the popular author. There is a mystery of sorts and plenty of suspense but in a different manner than usual for a James Patterson novel, but no murders or crimes are committed. Still, the writer flexes his muscles as he provides a strong, insightful, yet teary character study that looks closely at loss through the souls of Suzanne and Matt and the reactions of Katie. Using his usual switching from first to third and back to first case, Mr. Patterson provides a warm, somewhat overly maudlin tale that will stir the audience to want more dramas of this sort from a talented scribe.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 13, 2001