Home for the Christmas holiday Katie takes her younger sister's dog for a walk one early morning and never returns. The first reporter to break the story is Cassidy Shaw who knows this case can be a real career maker for her. Her ambition to keep the story before the public, is admittedly self-serving, but she does it with the hope that this awareness will help find Katie.

High profile cases generally attract the prosecutorial staffs early on and Allison Pierce is a local federal prosecutor, She involves herself in the case along with Nicole Hedge a local FBI agent. These three women are close friends and see themselves as "The Triple Threat Club." They work together embroiling themselves in the investigation much like James Patterson's "Women's Murder Club."

These women are not without problems of their own, and the author has integrated into this story a myriad of social and religious issues. Allison is a committed Christian who raises some theological questions in the story along with her infertility problems. Nicole is a single parent juggling a demanding career with the needs of her child, leaving no time for a of her own, and Cassidy has been sucked into an abusive relationship.

The characters are well defined, but this is done mostly by the tenor of their problems. Segues between the scenes are accomplished by point of view shifts among the three women, making this a choppy read at best. It could thus be argued that Katie's disappearance is in reality a forum for the discussion of the many social issues raised in this novel.

On the other hand, the investigatory process and its procedures seem reflective of the author's experiences and have a realism much needed in mystery novels. The foreshadowing of the identity of the wrongdoer is very well done.

The "Triple Threat Club" (a rather lightweight name for the seriousness of the crime portrayed in Face of Betrayal) will undoubtedly be returning in the future.

--Thea Davis