gripping

Vicki M. Taylor's "Not Without Anna," is a gripping, hard-hitting, thought-provoking look at the escalating crisis of teen alcohol and drug abuse. Charlene Austin

The dead man's face was pale and bloodless. The fierce white lights in the morgue showed up every detail mercilessly and every last pore and pock-mark was revealed, the history of a life, now reduced to a mere handful of scars. 'Always nice to see you Mark, but what brings you in so late on Friday afternoon?' Lambert said nothing, staring at Petrie's corpse, before turning to the coroner. John Humby was older and getting close to retirement and the two had been friends for a very long time. Humby resembled a large blood-hound, the more so the older he got and he was smiling over at Lambert, who was still thinking about the murder.

When life hasn__ got a swing anymore, people may give in to obsessive oniomaniac compulsions, in as much as they are going out of their way to construct a flamboyant life style and change their identity from __on__-need_ to __ust-have_ consumers, so as to satisfy their gripping buying desire. ("Buying now. Dying later")