Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline. New York: St. Marin's Press, 2016. 438 pages. Reading Group Guide. Excerpt from Damaged. *****
Christine and Marcus Nilsson have a wonderful life, great careers, stable marriage, everything except a baby. Unable to conceive, they make the difficult and private decision to use a sperm donor. Searching the candidates, they carefully choose Donor 3319. Christine is thrilled to be pregnant and is looking forward to her first sonogram when she sees a man bearing a likeness to their donor's picture being arrested on tv as a serial killer. If the accused killer is the father of her baby, will the baby have a predisposition to violence? Nature vs nurture? Christine is determined to have the baby and prove Donor 3319 is innocent.
Scottoline is a master manipulator and storyteller! Who else would have the reader sympathetic to an accused serial killer with a mountain of evidence against him? Carefully researched, packed with conflicting emotions and an inside view into the world of infertility, innocent parents are drawn into a world of scandal and murder. This is a book once you start it, you won't be able to put it down or stop thinking about Christine and Marcus. Just when you think you have it figured out, you realize you don't! Not only are there legal issues to consider about the confidentiality of sperm donors but the bigger issue of raising a child with an infamous violent biological father. I had the pleasure of hearing Lisa Scottoline speak at my local Barnes and Noble about her research for this book and how intrigued she is by the Donor process. It seems that the recipient has more stringent guidelines than those for donors. Scottoline is an entertaining speaker and has a gift for sucking me right into the story and keeping me in her grip until the very last page. A must read and an excellent Book Club choice. Update: since reviewing this book, there is an article in The New York Times on this very subject. Fiction meets fact..."Sperm Donor's Profile Hid Mental Illness"
Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of twenty-four novels. She has 30 million copies of her books in print in the United States, and she has been published in thirty-five countries. She has served as the president of Mystery Writers of America, and her thrillers have been optioned for television and film. She also writes a weekly humor column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and those critically acclaimed stories have been adapted into a series of memoirs, the first of which is entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets. Visit www.scottoline.com of follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaScottoline.
Lisa Scottoline is a New York Times bestselling and Edgar Award-winning author of twenty-four novels. She has 30 million copies of her books in print in the United States, and she has been published in thirty-five countries. She has served as the president of Mystery Writers of America, and her thrillers have been optioned for television and film. She also writes a weekly humor column with her daughter, Francesca Serritella, for The Philadelphia Inquirer, and those critically acclaimed stories have been adapted into a series of memoirs, the first of which is entitled Why My Third Husband Will Be a Dog. She lives in the Philadelphia area with an array of disobedient pets. Visit www.scottoline.com of follow Lisa on Twitter @LisaScottoline.
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