Coming Back
Library Journal
Rehab is hard work. Seven months after emerging from Locked-In Syndrome (as recounted in Locked In), Sharon McCone has been laboring to regain speech and motor control, working daily at physical therapy alongside Piper Quinn, victim of a devastating car accident. When Quinn misses days of exercise, McCone is worried enough to track her down, and when all traces of her and her fellow apartment building residents vanish overnight, McCone calls investigator Adah Joslyn for help. But when Joslyn also disappears, McCone realizes that her lack of follow-up has put her colleague in peril. As McCone chafes at being considered "special" and restricted from driving or piloting a plane, she finds her agency up against a ruthless rogue intelligence group, disbanded by the Obama administration but still operating and going after intelligence gathered by Quinn's ex-husband in Iraq. VERDICT What sets this novel far above the standard is Muller's sensitive and poignant description of McCone's struggles to regain her abilities—once again to be the brave and self-sufficient woman her husband Hy Ripinsky fell in love with. (And if Muller seems to preach about the danger of quasi-government and paramilitary organizations, her warnings sound justified.) Seeing Sharon McCone come back is a special pleasure—don't miss it.