Reviewed by Trudi LoPreto for Readers' Favorite
A very different concept made Smothered exciting, interesting and a very good fiction read with a feeling of real life happenings. Smothered has mystery, murder and suspense from beginning to end. Kitty is a young actress about to become the next child superstar; that is until the fateful night she disappears. When the police are called in, the search begins and the questions start – did she run away, was she kidnapped or could she possibly have been murdered? It doesn’t take very long to find her body and then all of her family become the leading suspects. Mom, the typical stage mother; Dad, who got caught up in the Hollywood style living; or perhaps her older neglected sister - each had the opportunity and a reason to want to kill Kitty. The story is very expertly written as a thirteen-year-old cold case with the transcripts and interviews as the main means of solving the case.
Smothered kept me reading and guessing until the very last pages revealed what actually happened the final night of Kitty’s life and I was truly surprised. M.C. Hall has taken a simply fictional murder mystery and put a new slant on it by telling the story in a way that made me feel as though I was in the courtroom and deciding the case. The characters were all so believable and well portrayed. Smothered could be a story that was taken right out of the news and it was sometimes hard to remember it was fiction and these were not real people. I truly became part of the plot and highly recommend it to all who enjoy a good mystery thriller. I would love to see Smothered as a courtroom movie as it has all the makings of a hit.
