Interesting ending! ( )

A truly intelligent book about a professor who can't accurately recall if he committed a murder or not. Most of the book is wound around the man's continuing loss of self in this psychological, taut, mystery. ( )

mILD-MANNERED PHILOSPy professor, Evan Birch, spends his days teaching college students to seek truth-to ask the big questions and debate the nature of reality. Then, one afternoon, he's pulled over by police, handcuffed, and questioned about the disappearance of a local high school cheerleader. ( )

What will you do if you're allegedly accused of murder that you never committed? How will you defend yourself if you meet all the coincidences (though the chance is infinitesimal)? This is the case for the hapless protagonist in The Spinning Man.
Evan Birch is a philosophy professor at Pearse College who had remained in tenure after the department downsized its faculty. One day a police officer pulled him over and handcuffed him for his alleged kidnapping 16-year-old high school junior Joyce Bonner. Birch's ten-year-old twin boys witness their father's humiliating arrest, making the strange episode more poignant.

All the evidence pointed against the professor who thrice coincided with Bonner, a cheerleader from a local high school who worked at the information booth of the park. An anonymous informant identified Birch's presence at the park on the day within an hour of Bonner's disappearance. The first two letters of the Jetta's license plate matched those recalled by the informant. A scrutiny of Birch's impounded Jetta produced a lipstick that belonged to the victim. In spite of Birch's firm denial of acquaintance with the missing girl, he recounted giving ride to a few teenagers after the summer camp at the college. So was it really a coincidence or Birch's punctilious lie?

Fear, tension, and suspense slowly welled up when Birch's wife Ellen began to suspect her husband. The Birch kept getting mysterious crank calls and Evan received electronic threats that howled him to admit the crime. The boys thought their father was acting weird and sneaked into the park to search for the missing victim. Everybody on campus and in town looked at him as though he was the culprit. Well was he?

The Spinning Man is a page-turner that grips you from beginning to the end when the truth manifests. Every page deposits into readers a bit more tension and fear. The philosophical aspect in the professor's diction only made the detective construe his words inaccurately. The book can be so gripping that even a single word being said, a gesture, a facial expression, a nuance, and even the use of verb tense can either redeem or doom the professor. The success of the book lies in the fact that one minute you will sympathize with the professor and take side with him but the next minute you are positive he is the murderer. Pages fly once you open this book! Great weekend or summer read. ( )