Review: The Bullet

The Bullet

By Mary Louise Kelly

Gallery Books March 2015

368 pages

Read for review via Netgalley

Caroline Cashion has a certain order to her days. She teaches her classes at Georgetown University, she visits her parents, and she has lots of time to read the books that she loves. When she gets an MRI, she is stunned to learn that there is a bullet at the base of her skull. She has no memory of ever being shot. Caroline soon discovers that everything she thought she knew about her childhood was false. Her beloved parents adopted her as a three year old after her biological parents were brutally murdered. She heads down South to her hometown, determined to find answers about what happened to her parents that night. But the bullet lodged in her skull is from that terrible night - will it help her find the truth or bring the killer back to finish what he started 33 years ago?

Thrillers are not my usual cup of tea, but something about the description of an ordinary professor drawn into intrigue drew me into the story. Caroline was a very believable protagonist. I am often frustrated by books and movies where an ordinary Joe or Jane suddenly is able to beat up all the bad guys and shoot with perfect aim and win in a car chase. That's not the case here. Caroline is a professor of French literature and so she goes looking for the story. She starts at the local newspaper and ends up talking to the cop who worked the case and her old neighbors. She certainly picks up some skills as she goes and evolves, but it is a gradual change. 

This novel is dark in places because it is about knowing ourselves. Caroline adores her family and thinks that she knows her history, but finding out new things about her past makes her question who she is, what she wants, and just what she is capable of doing. She is heartbroken that her parents and brothers have been lying to her for her entire life and must learn to trust them again after a lifetime of lies by omission.

Ms. Kelly does a wonderful job of portraying place. We begin in Washington D. C. as we travel in and around Georgetown. Caroline travels to Georgia to find answers and readers are treated to a totally different landscape and a group of people who are very different from Caroline's usual big city companions. I don't want to spoil anything, but Caroline travels to one more place during this book and the attention to detail makes the reader feel as if they have been instantly transported.

The Bullet is a great fast-paced read that will have you flipping pages late into the night, all the while wondering just what you would be capable of if your life changed forever in one terrifying moment.