Woman in Red By: Eileen Goudge

Alice Kessler has lived through a mother’s worst nightmare. While riding his bike, her eight-year-old son, David, was killed by a drunk driver. Out of her mind with grief and rage—especially after losing the wrongful death suit—Alice runs down the driver, Owen White, crippling him. After serving nine years in prison, she returns to Grays Island in the Pacific Northwest, divorced and destitute, to reunite with her surviving son, Jeremy.

But the child she has not seen in almost a decade has become an angry teenager, and when Jeremy is falsely accused of rape, White, who is now mayor, seizes his chance for revenge.

To defend Jeremy, Alice seeks the help of former Manhattan DA Colin McGinty, who lost his wife on 9/11 and returned to Grays Island after the death of his grandfather—an artist famous for his haunting portrait Woman in Red. As the story of the painting is revealed, the past becomes intertwined with the present, and Alice and Colin discover that they are bound together by a deadly wartime secret on the verge of being exposed.

Goodreads: 3.81

Paperback, 2008