Published 2017/2023 by Penguin Books
424 pages
ISBN: 97801-784-75625-3
Grade 1/5
Genre: crime
Keywords: murder, abduction, kidnapping, virgin birth, home schooling, family tragedy, teenagers, incompetent police work, new relationship
I did not like this book.
Laurel has looked for ten years for her 15 years old daughter Ellie she disappeared and never seen again. Laurel is frozen in grief, she has got divorced, her two our children, Hannah and Jake, feel she has pushed them away. The police thought Ellie had run away, teenagers. Laurel knows that is not so: she was happy, in love, popular at school, intelligent, ready for her exams which she missed. When her schoolbag and some bones were found, a funeral could be arranged, but Laurel did not really get closure because nobody knew what had happened.
After the funeral she meets Flynn, and falls in love with him. She is shocked to realize that his daughter, Poppy is a copy of Ellie. Poppy’s mother was strange and has also disappeared.
Then follows chapters that changes between Laurel, Flynn and Ellie’s abductor.
In 1930 the Detecting Club was established by authors of detective books including some of my favorite authors: Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie. They established rules for writing detective novels; rule number 2: All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course. In this book Jake’s girlfriend can see that the ‘aura’ around Flynn is dark and dangerous; not what a prober detective novel should have as a significant finding; not honest and fair to the readers, they cannot participate in the detecting. The characters in the book are not real people to me, but something very flat, one dimensional.
When I read that Poppy was very much like Ellie, I guessed she was her daughter (page 95); that made me really irritated because that meant what was left to read was about evil. Why write such a (too) long book about evil. The description of what happened to Ellie, is what we have learned from the people kidnapped from their homes and held hostages by Hamas terrorists in Gaza; at the moment 136 hostages, including two small children aged one and four years; pure evil and inhumane terrorism; for 120 days for being Israelis.
I find the plot in the book unrealistic, not logical, not relevant, nothing to think about, just too long, page after page of paper pollution and quite boring, without anything good came of it. It took me ten days to finish it, several times I threw it away. But decided to criticize it, so I had to read it to the bitter end; I did not enjoy it.
One thing I like about detective novels is that justice is served in the end; not so in this book; no justice for Ellie or her family; one more thing that made me dislike it so much.
The guy in the bookshop told me this author is the next Agatha Christie, that is absolutely not true in my opinion, I will not listen to this guy’s recommendations in the future.
I will not read any more by this author.
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