BACK-TO-BACK THRILLERS - I'm on a roll.

I finished the book THE PERFECT MOTHER two days ago and now just finished THE PERFECT STRANGER. Different authors - different stories, but both just as thrilling and engrossing.

Sometimes there are valid reasons for wanting to stay out of the lime light. There are people who like to live their lives just under the radar -- some for safety reasons, other just don't like crowds or publicity and then there are those who are trying to hide. But as the saying goes -- you can run but you can't hide and that is just what happened to Leah Stevens.

Leah was a reporter who took her reporting a little too far; some say she stepped over the line but no one could have predicted the outcome. Leah wants (and needs) to get out of town and out of the hot seat. When she runs into an old friend (Emmy) she hasn't seen in 8 years, who also says she is feeling a pull for the open road, they decide to set up shop in a small town in the backwoods.

There are those that go looking for trouble and there are those that trouble just finds them. Leah soon finds herself front and center in a deadly cat and mouse game with a stalker, a friend who has gone missing and a feeling that the odds are quickly stacking against her.

At first this story moved a bit slow for me but about half-way through, the hook was set and I was a goner. Through police questioning, Leah discovers that no one in town has really seen or knows of her friend, Emmy. Is she even real? It comes down to Leah's word against a mountain of evidence to the contrary. The truth is that we never really know another person - we only know what they choose to show or share with us. Likewise, we usually never expose ALL of ourselves to others. We always hold back that one piece that is ours alone, in case someone should find us less than the "perfect" friend. Some hold back more than others.