"A powerful read"

Though she works hard at her career, Rachel Belmore enjoys her job, but especially loves her two-year old baby Ellie and her highly regarded surgeon husband Wes. However, her idyllic life in Nassau County New York ends when she sees Wes "coaxing his penis into the baby's mouth" for what she now knows is not the first time.

However, Wes is a pro at the game of illusion and quickly has the child welfare and legal system participants believing he is an innocent victim of a maniac whom never recovered from giving birth. As Ellie's behavior worsens, Rachel turns desperate to keep her baby safe from a pediophile who makes Machiavelli look like an amateur especially with Judge McGillian leaning towards giving full custody of Ellie to her publicly smooth father in Belmore vs. Belmore.

This work is simplistic in terms of the characters as Wes is a predator manipulating the public relations process and the child welfare and legal systems while Rachel is an emotional wreck making errors as she learns the needed game to protect Ellie. The impact of the abuse and the court case are described on several levels, but especially the aftermath on the child as seen through the distraught filter of the mother. PUPPET CHILD is a powerful modern day social tale that pulls no punches as Talia Carner wastes no words to describe the pediophile and his clever machinations and the desperation of a lioness to keep her cub safe from a jungle of knowing do-gooders. This book is a powerhouse that opens ones eyes to the evil around them.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted December 15, 2002