picture of Michael Sherer

Michael W. Sherer


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Michael W. Sherer decided after stints as a manual laborer, dishwasher, bartender, restaurant manager, commercial photographer, magazine editor and public relations executive, that life should imitate art—he’s now a freelance writer like his mystery series protagonist. He’s published five novels in the Emerson Ward mystery series ("An Option On Death," "Little Use For Death," "Death Came Dressed In White," "A Forever Death," and "Death Is No Bargain"). "Island Life," a stand-alone thriller about an ordinary suburban father's race to find out what happened to his missing wife before he loses his children, his freedom and possibly his life, was published in March.

Island Life (Five Star First Edition Mystery)

Michael W. Sherer
Five Star Publishing (2008)
ISBN 9781594146336
Reviewed by Danielle Feliciano for Reader Views (4/08)

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: How do you live without someone who’s been part of your life for twenty years? Jack Holm begins to find out when his wife doesn’t return to their suburban Seattle home after shopping one day. Her absence is not unusual given her flight attendant’s job, and it’s a respite from recent marital discord, so Jack feels relief not worry. But when a day goes by with no word, then another, Jack, his teenage daughter and ten-year-old son do worry. After three days, Jack reports her missing.

Suddenly, Jack is swept up in a terrifying conflagration of events that threaten to tear his world apart. The police suspect him of foul play. Children and Family Services suspects him of abuse. And someone is spying on his kids.

Now a single dad, Jack tries to help his kids deal with their mother’s disappearance, but when he’s arrested on suspicion of murder, he stands to lose it all. The state and his mother-in-law want to take away his kids. The police want him in jail. Abandoned by friends and family, Jack has nowhere to turn, and the mounting evidence begins to make him think he might actually be a killer.

But mysterious phone calls and a CD containing child pornography that turns up in his wife’s belongings convince him otherwise. He quickly realizes the only way to stay ahead of the law and prevent his children from being put in foster care is to find out what happened to his wife. With new-found courage from a woman who believes in his innocence and the help of another outcast, Jack pursues a shadowy Japanese Yakuza crime boss from Seattle to Las Vegas and back, putting himself and all the people he loves in mortal danger.