"The Crossing" , by Serita Jakes

I had mixed feelings about this book.  The overall plot was cleverly presented, especially with one of the main characters revealing her thoughts as she lay dying, at which point, some of the baffling fragments of her life that needed to be resolved were revealed to the reader.  But there were parts of the storyline that did not seem credible and did not make sense to me at all.  Also, some of the main characters remained stagnant as their roles did not morph into something more solid than what was originally presented.  An example was Harper, whose feelings oscillated from fear to love of Casio and whose seeming vascillation and naivete became her undoing.

The book started with a prologue as one of the main characters, BJ Remington, the dead cheerleading coach, replayed the nightmare of the night she was shot, the bloody, gory scene as she lay on the floor of the bus that was supposed to bring them home, her best friend Claudia's hysterical cries, and Casio's futile attempt to protect her from the killer.  Claudia and Casio suffered emotionally and psychologically more than the others who were at the scene of the crime and ten years later, they remained haunted by the past. 

Claudia's erratic behavior as a result of PTSD was threatening to destroy her marriage to Victor Campbell, the Assistant DA who was a decent and upright man.  In his desire to help Claudia's problem that was being complicated by frequent panic attacks, he decided to reopen the unsolved ten-year old murder case of BJ Remington.  Casio, the high school star quarterback who was also wounded the night BJ was murdered and whose unpredictable violent behaviors also stemmed from PTSD,  convinced Vic to bring him into the investigation because he had some new information regarding the case.  Casio, who was now a police officer,  was Claudia's boyfriend in high school and the son of the police officer who previously investigated the case.   The investigation led to the unraveling of the secret the dead BJ kept hidden from everyone and the sinful relationship she had with one of the characters that swept the lives of those around her into turmoil. 

This story mirrored life in many ways but there were reasons why I could only give it 3 stars.  It was supposed to be a Christian book, but I felt there was a prevailing dark side to it that was not completely mitigated by the happy ending of Vic and Claudia's story.  Casio was a lost soul and his redemption remained elusive till the end.   The other characters in the story, such as Harper and Vic's mother,  were not given the opportunity to reinforce the nature of wholesomeness that should be the prevailing mood in a book dealing with Christian values.  Marital infidelity, murder, deceit, and ill-bred behavior, overpowered the moral uprightness and integrity that only Vic completely exemplified.

I was also bothered by the number of errors that seemed to have skipped the scrutiny of this book's proof-readers.  There were also inconsistencies in the story that were not fully explained but bringing those up would spoil the ending so I would stop right here.  This book was still a good read because the suspense would keep the reader turning the page.

I got this book for free in exchange for a honest review,  from the publisher, Waterbrook Multnomah.com.