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Critic's Corner
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Readers may be surprised to learn that Patterson's "When the Wind Blows," featuring the winged children, is his most successful novel around the world. This is saying a great deal when you consider this author has 22 best-selling novels to his credit. "The Lake House," is another in Patterson's Winged Children series. "The Lake House" stands alone, but readers who missed "When the Wind Blows" may want to go back and read that novel before tackling the intricate plot of this sequel. "Dr. Ethan Kane is chief of surgery at Liberty General Hospital, one of the most esteemed hospitals in the nation. It is here that terrible secrets lie, secrets that will change the world for all of us." The only outside person who knows about the secrets of Liberty General is Maximum, one of the six winged children who had been created in a laboratory and made history, both scientific and philosophical. But Max won't talk about what she knows, she must not, for she's been told, "If you talk. You die!" As the book opens the "mother of all custody trials" is ongoing. "The case is also billed as potentially more wrenching and explosive than Baby M, or Elian Gonzales, or O.J. Simpson's battle against truth and decency. The fate of six extraordinary children is at stake: Max, Matthew, Icarus, Ozymandias, Peter, and Wendy. Fighting for custody is the biological, so to speak, parents of the children, and F.B.I. Agent, Thomas "Kit" Brennan and his ally Dr. Frannie O'Neill. It was Kit and Frannie who once before rescued the children from unimaginable evil. All Kit and Frannie have to do is prove to the court that the children are safer with them than with their biological parents. Kit and Frannie know that the full weight of the law is against them, but they have to try. Frannie tells the story and she feels that it sounds crazy, even to herself, but still she claims the children's story is true. As a veterinarian, Frannie proved months ago she was more capable of caring for the winged children than their parents. Six months ago near the tiny burg of Bear Bluff, Colorado Frannie discovered Max running through the woods not far from her home. The girl was wounded, her white smock stained with blood and ripped. Frannie remembers thinking that she couldn't be seeing what she was seeing, but her eyes didn't lie. "Along with a pair of foreshortened arms, the girl had wings!" ". . . In her own good time she (Max) told me things that made me sick to my stomach and angrier than I'd ever been. She told me about a place called the School, where she'd been kept captive since the day she was born." It was later Frannie discovered that five other winged children existed in the School. With the help of Kit, Frannie was able to rescue all the children. After the rescue, Max and the children lived at the lake house for a few blissful months with Kit and Frannie. Now, with the custody battle that safe haven might be lost forever. These biological parents had never spent even one day with their children. In truth, they'd been told that their babies had died. Still, the judge ruled in favor of the parents and the children are removed to their parents' homes where they were anything but safe. Exploited yes, safe—no. The children were not happy. They phoned Kit and Frannie constantly. They told them how horribly depressed they were, how scared, and some even suicidal. Frannie, as a vet, knew why. The children had done the bird thing: they had imprinted on Kit and herself. They were the only parents the children knew and loved. Nevertheless, Frannie could not help them until once again, Max escaped her parents home when two men entered the home and tried to kidnap her and her brother Matthew. This is where the story takes on a breathtaking, never-saw-it-coming quality. A hinged plot comes into play and you read about the daring escape of all the children into Kit and Frannie's care, and the unspeakable evil of Dr. Ethan Kane and his Resurrection Project. Questions come thick and fast as you wonder what is it Max knows that she cannot tell? Why does Kane want the children so much that he's willing to kill anyone who stands in his way? And just what is he doing in his secret laboratory at Liberty General. Patterson says in his foreword that there are people who won't fantasize or play make-believe. He also says these people would never have gotten to Neverland with Peter Pan. During the writing of "The Lake House" Patterson interviewed dozens of scientists, all of them said that things like those that happen in "The Lake House" will happen in our lifetime. So settle in, you believers, and even you Muggles—and let your imaginations soar.
Jones is a published writer, and a book critic for The Tulsa World newspaper Copyright Patricia Ann Jones May 30, 2003, all rights reserved. To comment on this review you may email pattij777@aol.com |
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The Lake House
