Well.....I loved this author's first novel (The Girl Before) but this thriller just didn't....thrill me.
STORY SUMMARY
Claire Wright, age 25, is a single girl who lives with her friend Jess in NYC. She's a struggling actress who takes classes at an elite acting school yet has trouble securing work because she is from England and doesn't have a green card. She was raised in several different foster homes.
She struggles to find work and owes Jess's dad, who owns the apartment, a lot of back rent. Then all of a sudden, she has a job......but it isn't exactly what she was expecting.
She's asked to act as a decoy for a law firm. The law firm is where people go to get divorces and she's hired to entrap husbands whose wives believe they are having affairs or hiring prostitutes. But...she has to wait for the man to proposition her....she only has to make him know she's available. The law firm is after evidence.
But then things change.
Stella Fogler, the wife who hires Claire to entrap her husband, is found dead in her hotel room. She has been violently murdered. The police are certain that Patrick Fogler is the killer. Yet Claire doesn't think so. There was something about Patrick that she liked. Maybe it was his love for the French author Baudelaire which he quoted when he met her at the bar. However, he never proposes that they have a rendez vous. So.....did he murder Stella?? What would be his motive?? He seemed faithful to his wife.
The police profiler is convinced that he is the killer though based on past experiences he has had and they are desperate to catch him before he kills again. They think he is the one responsible for the serial killings of prostitutes in recent years, before he married Stella.
The police hire Claire to lure him into a confession. The pay? A green card.
Claire is a brilliant actress and knows she can pull this off. She has mastered the art of manipulation, so how difficult will it be to entrap a killer? but...who becomes the decoy?? and who becomes the prey??
MY THOUGHTS
This book drew me in immediately but by the end of the middle, I had had enough. I did read the entire story because I wanted to see if my hunch about the killer was correct (it was) but honestly, this book isn't all that it's cracked up to be in my opinion.
The setting and character development is very good but the story is just too out there and too odd. There is a lot of strange, and kinky s*xual scenes and that was a total turn-off for me.....it's just too dark and creepy.
I really enjoyed the author's first novel so was very disappointed in this one.
The main themes are family dysfuntion, the British foster care system, lies and manipulation, and s*xual deviance.
The character of Claire is one you might like...or dislike...or maybe somewhere in between. I found myself liking her at first, then not liking nor trusting her and the author does do a good job with finally getting to Claire's own secrets about her childhood. It was rather as I suspected but I wasn't totally sure. It's just not that exciting like other psychological thrillers are.
In my opinion, this book is appropriate for ages 17 and older (due to dark, mature content and language).
On a scale of 1-10, with 10 being the highest, I rate this a 5.
3 comments:
I don't think I've heard of this author before but it doesn't sound like it would be my cup of tea.
It was highly disappointing!!!
Thanks for the review Faith. I've also read The Girl Before and enjoyed it so I probably would have been tempted by this. I think I'll give it a miss.
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