** spoiler alert ** Joy Fielding seems to have watched too many episodes of "House" and "Law & Order." Her novel "Still Life" echoes stories from these too shows that it's almost embarrassing.

The novel tells the story of Casey, a beautiful, successful businesswoman with a happy marriage/home/career/life. Read: something bad's going to happen to her! She is struck by a car so severely that every bone in her body is broken and she suffers from extreme brain trauma. The "...more Joy Fielding seems to have watched too many episodes of "House" and "Law & Order." Her novel "Still Life" echoes stories from these too shows that it's almost embarrassing.

The novel tells the story of Casey, a beautiful, successful businesswoman with a happy marriage/home/career/life. Read: something bad's going to happen to her! She is struck by a car so severely that every bone in her body is broken and she suffers from extreme brain trauma. The "hook" is that she is mentally conscious, able to hear and see those around her, but unable to communicate or move. (Look for an episode of "House" about locked-in syndrome.) Predictably, she learns how her family and friends really think about her and is *stunned* to learn a few things.

One of the things she learns is that her accident was no accident. [Insert "Law & Order" dun-dun sound here.:] Her seemingly wonderful husband actually paid someone to kill her. *Gasp!* Learning this, she must then figure out how to communicate her fear to others without tipping off the husband that she knows he's a sociopath. Ultimately, she is able to communicate with her sister that the husband is bad news. Casey regains her strength in just the nick of time to save herself, her family and bring her husband to justice.

The most significant problem with the novel is its predictability, mainly because the storylines were heavily borrowed from other sources. Calling this a "novel of suspense" was also a misnomer, primarily because the author reveals who the bad guy is way too early, thus removing the element of suspense. Finally, I'm annoyed that the perfect main character got back her perfect life in the end. Even "Law & Order" lets some of the good guys lose now and then ( )

A suspenseful story of a young woman caught between life and death paralysed from a car accident and realizing that someone is trying to kill her. Cleverly written and in spite of her dire situation she manages to come across with humor making this an enjoyable read, ( )

casey is in a coma after being hit by a car. Was someone trying to kill her. Loving husband stays at her side. Sister Drew comes around..mystery told through the ears of Casey who hears everything. ( )

With over twenty books under her belt, Joy Fielding is bound to improve with every novel, yet occasionally produce work that feels like it is a step backward to her faithful readers. Still Life: A Novel, while well-written in spite of a tricky Plot device, still manages to fall short of what Fielding fans have come to expect.

The gimmick of having the books narrator spend the majority of the novel non-communicative yet fully aware of her surroundings in a coma, attempting to solve her attempted murder and prevent a successful second go at it, seems intriguing and inventive at the start. It is.

But the longer you read, the more you begin to realize that you've heard this story before. There isn't much extraordinary material in the book to separate it from other variations on the same theme, including the ever popular "ghost attempting to solve own murder" yarn, no matter how well Fielding handles the self-imposed restrictions of the plot device. Add to that a few instances of non-essential back stories that serve little more purpose than running up the page count, and you can't help shake the feeling that, as competent and well-written Still Life might be, it might have been better served as a short story.

Much like the book's heroine, Still Life manages to exist somewhere between a dead bore and a living, breathing work. You may not hate it, but chances are you won't love it, either. Call it a mystery on life support. ( )

At 32-years-old Casey Marshall is beautiful, intelligent, extremely wealthy, and married to a loving, dedicated husband. Life is great until the day her life is forever changed after being struck by a car; an event that leaves her in a coma.

But Casey isn't your typical coma patient. While she can't move, see, or feel, she can hear everything going on around her.

While police determine that what happened to Casey wasn't an accident, her husband, sister and two best friends can't imagine who would want to hurt Casey - especially to wish her dead.

As Casey struggles to let those around her know that she is indeed in their presence - even if in audio only - and regain her other lost senses, she learns that she doesn't know her loved ones as well as she thought she did.

Surprises abounded in Still Life, an edge-of-seat, can't-put-it-down thriller from Joy Fielding.

I absolutely love a mystery and too often these days I am able to figure out the "whodunnit" long before the end. So what I particularly liked about Still Life was that the "who" was answered early, as well as they "why," but the real cliffhanger includes "whens" and "ifs." I was left guessing until the next to the last chapter.

Still Life is most definitely in the top 10 of my favorite thriller novels for 2009. If this is a genre you enjoy, you'll want to read Still Life by Joy Fielding. ( )