
Gaylene G. (
gigi) wrote on 3/1/2009...
This was just a darned good book! So good, that I read it in one day!! I didn't think, as some others did, that it started slow. To the contrary, it started with whiz-bang, with the main character's husband being murdered.
I did get a little upset about a third of the way thru the book when, right at a crucial moment, the author takes us back to WWII and introduces a brand new set of characters, some sweet and innocent and some evil. But, it didn't take me long to get wrapped up in their story too because they were actually the very people that the current day people were investigating.
Interesting plot(s) and characters and a very well told story.

Judy B. (
jdyinva) - Virginia Bch, VA wrote on 2/7/2008...
Thoroughly enjoyed the twists and turns. A satisfying read.

Cherri B. (
cherri) wrote on 10/16/2007...
Another fascinating histoical who-done-it from an accomplished author. I make it a point not to miss one of her books although I missed this when it was first published. It does start a bit slowly but once it grabs you it doesn't let go and has a surprise ending.

Vikki P. (
vikki322) wrote on 4/19/2007...
When her husband is brutally murdered at her fortieth birthday party, his throat cut with a weapon that has not been used since World War II, Claire Hayden is forced to team up with her late husband's enigmatic associate, Ian Marshall, to catch a killer, plunging them both into a dangerous mystery that spans decades. Reprint.

Bill M. (
knight) wrote on 6/18/2006...
Benda Joyce delivers her most breathing, suspenseful and romantic noval yet-the story of one women whose perfect comes to an end when she is caught up in the chase for a brillant cold blooded killer.

Allison W. (
sealady) wrote on 5/17/2006...
From Publishers Weekly: "A wealthy San Francisco do-gooder finds herself enmeshed in a mystery dating back to WWII in this romantic suspense novel by New York Times bestseller Joyce (House of Dreams, etc.). Claire Hayden leads a privileged and pampered life rescuing stray animals and hosting charity events. But beneath the perfect facade, Claire's marriage is falling apart. In a last ditch effort to save their relationship, she throws her husband, David, a 40th birthday party. During the party, Claire meets Ian Marshall, one of her husband's associates, and senses some tension between the two. When the party is over, Claire goes in search of her husband and finds him outside, with his throat cut. The police quickly link David's death to another murder as both victims were killed with a thumb knife a weapon that hasn't been used since World War II. Claire tracks down the elusive Ian Marshall and after much prompting learns that David was blackmailing WWII spy Lionel Elgin and was planning to turn him over to Ian, a Holocaust research center investigator. Claire insists on joining Ian in his search for Elgin. The two travel to England to trace Elgin's roots and to speak with his remaining family. It soon becomes clear that Ian believes Claire's father, Jean-L‚on Ducasse, or Jean-L‚on's best friend, William Duke, to be Elgin. Claire refuses to believe his theory, but as she and Ian piece together Elgin's history and fall for one another in the process, Claire fears that she may have been raised by a killer. Joyce skillfully weaves together past and present to create an amazing story of intrigue, wartime passion and thrilling twists and turns." Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
Claire Hayden has no idea that her world is about to be shattered. At the conclusion of her husband's forthieth birthday party, he is found murdered. He has no enemies. He has committed no crimes. He has no shady past, or at least that's what Claire thinks.......
Claire's search for the truth leads her to the mysterious Ian Marshall, a stranger who first appeared in her life on the night of her husband's murder, a stranger whom she senses is somehow involved. As Claire and Ian team up to track down their quarry, Ian proves himself to be a dangerous man, dangerous not just to "Claire's heart, but to her mind........

Joan N. (
zvdog) wrote on 11/15/2005...
Claire Hayden has no idea that her world is about to be shattered. At the conclusion of her husband's 40th birthday party, he is found murdered, his throat cut with a weapon that hasn't been used since World War II. He has no enemies. He has committed no crimes. He has no shady past. Or, that is what Claire thinks....
Claire's search for information leads her to the mysterious Ian Marshall, an acquaintance of her husband who seems to know something. Someone has been killing this way for decades. Someone whose crimes go back to World War II. Someone who will do anything to make certain no one finds out. As Claire and Ian team up to track down the killer, Ian makes a shocking revelation: the killer may be someone close -- and moving closer -- to Claire.

Patricia S. (
patsto) wrote on 10/22/2005...
5 stars - Great destinies are never for the faint-hearted in Brenda Joyce's romantic
thrillers, and never has that been more true than in The Chase, the tale of a 50-year-old
horror and its shocking legacy for an innocent woman. Busy, beautiful Claire Hayden, wife of
a prominent San Francisco attorney, heiress to a tidy fortune, and fundraiser for numerous
pet causes, watches her superficially secure life unravel during her husband's 40th-birthday
party. Not only does Claire decide in the midst of festivities that she wants a divorce, but
she discovers her preoccupied spouse gruesomely murdered, her assets evaporated, and a
handsome stranger igniting her repressed sexual passion.
Faced with dark, new challenges, Claire toughens up in the gales of a multigenerational
mystery, including the nightmarish possibility that her own father has been an assassin
since the 1940s. Crucial to the story is Claire's ticklish crime-solving partnership with
sexy Nazi-hunter Ian Marshall; unfortunately, their love-hate, bicker-flirt relationship
quickly becomes monotonous. Far better is the tragic, evocative subplot concerning the
marriage of a poor, orthodox Jew and a Christian aristocrat in pre-World War II Britain. In
The Chase, the past always lurks, like a killer biding his time, behind the enigmas of one's
life.