Title:	The Woman Who Couldn’t Remember but Didn’t Forget
	Author:	Walli F. Leff
	Published:	2013, Sunstone Press
	No. of Pages:	362
	Cover Price:	$26.95 US

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Sylvie Deroque is Vice President of Sustainable Resources at ER, a multi-million dollar oil company. She has just landed a huge contract with a Brazilian company using wind power which will mean her division will be profitable on its own. However, she learns that one of the other executives has stolen her client and has signed him to a bigger oil contract, essentially tossing away years of hard work for her department. Sylvie rushes to confront the executive, Larry Windsor, and the client in order to set up a meeting that will save her contract, but ends up taking a gun from the security guard’s holster and shooting Windsor and an employee of the client who is cruelly yelling and abusing an ER employee. She doesn’t remember anything about the shooting.

Sylvie is an accomplished composer and concert pianist who cannot perform in front of an audience because of psychological problems that are baffling to her, and seemingly unsolvable. She has had strange dreams since childhood that have kept her from sleeping through the night. Her boyfriend, Tobias, is an artist with an upcoming New York showing of his paintings that he is excitedly preparing for. Sylvie’s family, friends, and Tobias all rally around her, bail her out, and support her during the time she is preparing to go to trial for attempted murder.

As the story unfolds, Sylvie is on leave from the company and is meeting with a top psychologist as well as a top criminal lawyer. Those in her department are working diligently to find the source of corruption in the company that brought about the conflict, and her family, friends, and Tobias are rallying in her support. Before the novel ends, Sylvie’s close relationships are endangered, she loses her ability to compose, and she becomes embittered.

The Woman who Couldn’t Remember but Didn’t Forget contains all of the elements of a good thriller: attempted murder, a courtroom drama, a protagonist in danger of losing her job, corruption in a huge company, interesting psychological issues, family relationships in jeopardy…Whew! With so much to keep track of, it’s amazing that it works. But work it does! This book is fascinating, well-researched, and difficult to put down. Although this book is a work of fiction, there is an abundance of intriguing factual information on the treatment of Jews in France during World War II, as well as sustainable power, repressed memory, music, art, and the 70’s era. It’s rare when a new author is able to blow avid readers away, but Walli Leff has done just that. Not that this book is perfect, there are some areas that drag a little with too much scientific information than is necessary, a little too much description in a few places, and a few minor editing errors, but the quality of this excellent book will insure that readers will be clamoring for more.

Walli Leff provided a review copy of this book to me free of charge.

This book may be purchased at Amazon: The Woman Who Couldn't Remember But Didn't Forget, A Novel