The Book: The Living Image
The Author: P. M. Richter
My Review:
Only on rare occasions are we fortunate enough to run across a thoroughly new and original story. P. M. Richter has written one. It caught me off guard in the opening sentence and dared me to enter a world that is both frightening and deadly. Perhaps only P. M. Richter could have imagined such a twisted and tormented world.
She wrote: “Sabrina’s eyelids fluttered in the midst of a dream in which a tiny maniacal form was torturing her, fiendishly stabbing about her head with needles. It was so vivid and frightening she tried to awaken, like you can sometimes do in a shocking nightmare, but her body was paralyzed. She was blind. She couldn’t move.”
I was trapped now. P. M. Richter had captured my imagination and had no intention of letting it go. Was it a dream? Or was it really a nightmare? Who was Sabrina and why is someone doing such terrible things to her?
She opens her eyes and feels as though she is looking into a mirror. She is staring into her own face, but it belongs to another. Sabrina, meet Eve. She is your exact double. She is like you in every way. She has your face, your body, and your mind. There is, however, one exception. Eve is a robot. Eve is your clone. She knows what you think. She feels what you have experienced. She’s in tune with your passions and fears, your hopes and worries. And she may be the most valuable, most sought-after commodity in the world.
Intelligence agencies will do whatever it takes to own Eve and the technology that has come so close to creating another human being. The CIA is after her. So are the Russians. And the Japanese aren’t far behind. There is only one problem. No one can detect any difference between Sabrina and Eve. If the wrong one dies, it’s nothing more than collateral damage.
The race has begun in a tightly knit story of betrayal, of survival. What will happen to Sabrina and Eve? Can they escape? Can Sabrina protect her clone from a myriad of spies and greedy lawyers who always seem to be one lone step behind them? She fights as though she is protecting herself, and perhaps she is. After a while, she does not feel any difference between herself and her living image.
A very talented novelist, P. M. Richter has written a novel that can be described as part science fiction, part fantasy, and all thriller. Looking for a novel not quite like anything you have ever read before? Look no farther than Living Images.

Today I learned that my former husband died of lung cancer.  So I am sad and grieving with memories from long ago.

The irony is that I learned of his death by going to his Facebook page.  I'd been doing that regularly.  I knew he was very sick, I talked to him in the hospital a couple of weeks ago.  He couldn't eat anything and was in a lot of pain.  I knew he wouldn't make it home.  Knew he wouldn't leave the hospital.  I said, I love you.  He said it back to me.

We were married on the beach in Hawaii.  Waikiki Beach.  My parents had come to Hawaii and kept taking me to churches and I kept shaking my head.  I didn't want to be married in any of them.  They were at their wits end when the social director at the hotel where they were staying said, Why not have it on the beach behind the hotel.  It was perfect.  


When he called to tell his parents we were getting married they thought he was joking.  They didn't come.

We were good friends, my husband and I.  But we were not good at marriage.  We had lots of fun times, there in Hawaii.  When we broke up for good, he left Hawaii.  I didn't know where he was.

Years and years went by.  I searched for him, but didn't know where he was.  He was searching for me too.  I got this email in June of last year:

Hi Pam,
 I always knew you were beautiful, smart and talented, I'm happy that you put it all to good use.

When I saw his name I emailed back.

He'd found me on Facebook..  I learned that he married for a second time and had two children, a boy and a girl.  He was happy and I was glad.  We emailed, talked on the phone, and communicated sometimes through Facebook.  It was a secret, but if his wife knew she wouldn't have been upset or jealous.  It was just good friends talking and laughing over the past.  We had hurt each other during the marriage, probably because we were young.  So it was like a new chance to put all that hurt away and reach a better understanding.

I remember in Hawaii, when he was angry we would go downstairs in the rec room of our condo in Hawaii and we would play ping-pong, smashing balls back and forth at each other.  We were both excellent players, but I wouldn't let him play for points.  I didn't want to win or lose.  I just wanted to play.

Now I want to say how sorry I am to the family.  I knew his sister and parents.  His brother lived with us for a while in Hawaii.  But it was so long ago.  They probably don't want to hear from the former wife.

So I am sad and grieving.  That's why I'm writing this.  I have no one to say how sorry and sad I am to.  No one who knew him to talk to.

I'm so angry at the medical profession.  He told me months ago that he had this cough that wouldn't go away.  Then he began seeing doctors.  First they said he had cancer.  Then, no it isn't cancer.  He said he was trying to raise a family and the bills just for a diagnosis had reached $50,000 - they kept sending him to specialists who couldn't agree.

Finally they decided to operate.  He was doing okay.  Then he got an infection in the pic line.  They filled him with medications and gave him chemo.  It was too late.  What he went through from the medical profession was barbaric.

I'm fighting cancer myself for the second time.  I went through two surgeries, round after round of chemo. which ruined my body.  I had 31 rounds of radiation.  A few years later I have cancer again, in exactly the same place.  The treatment was painful, I was bald for nine months.  Now I'm using homeopathic methods to treat the cancer myself.  


I am so very sad that he died.  Not just for today.  I'll be sad for a long, long, time. He was my only husband.  He was handsome and fun and smart.