Suspense

Initially, this appeared to be an intriguing read. Iris, school psychologist at an academy for spoiled rich kids, is devastated when the news breaks that her husband, Will, who was supposed to be attending a conference in Orlando as a keynote speaker, was instead on a plane to Seattle which crashed with no survivors. Iris and Will had a "perfect" marriage, but as she begins to investigate his links with Seattle, it is gradually revealed that he has lied to her about every aspect of his personal history. I don't want to say too much more about the plot because of spoilers, but Will's actions have placed Iris in jeopardy.

I quite liked some of the minor characters, such as Iris' parents and twin brother Dave - though I don't know why the author seems to think they would share the "telepathy" experienced between identical twins - but others, such as the lawyer, whose family died in the crash, and Will's gym buddy Corban are stereotypes. The latter, given that Corban is African American, can't help but offend many readers. Again avoiding spoilers, but I really didn't like the turn that the book took with that character.

Some of the things that happen aren't credible - someone who has not been shown as handy with a gun is suddenly a crack shot at a crucial moment. Iris, we are told repeatedly, is a psychologist but never comes across as competent rather than incredibly naive. I got very tired of the constant use of nausea as a grief symptom - she is constantly feeling sick, being sick and trying to stop herself being sick. It was OTT. And the crucial revelation of a certain character's motivation made no sense, since to comply with the blackmail demands would have the same result as the reaction the blackmailed person feared from just telling the truth. Plus the truth would at least offer a slim chance of forgiveness. If that person had nothing to lose either way why not tell the truth and spare the recipient of the confession the anguish shown in the story. Because of the nonsensical motive and the racist stereotype, I can only give this one star. ( )

I will not give one clue to this book except to say I've never had a book end in this way. What a concept for a book. ( )

Una vez más, buscando dentro del género de suspense, uno de mis preferidos, me deje llevar por las opiniones de tanta y tanta gente que escribía elogios respecto a este libro.

Quizás demasiadas expectativas...

Me gusto como empezó. Tenía pinta de poder ser muy interesante... pero en mi opinión, es un libro flojo. Para pasar un rato, sin más pretensiones. Que intenta llegar pero no lo logra. Por lo menos en mi caso.

Habiendo leído últimamente libros tan buenos como “la paciente silenciosa” o “al cerrar la puerta”, este libro lo calificaría como uno más de esos que no quedarán en mi memoria por dejar huella.

Siendo uno de los más aclamados de esta autora, no me han quedado ganas de leer otra de sus obras. ( )

Edit: Bumping this down to two stars because it KEEPS WEIGHING on my mind JUST how problematic the treatment of race in this story was. Come on. We need to do better than this.

Okay, first things first, WHY IS THE BAD GUY THE ONLY BLACK GUY IN THE BOOK. IF YOU'RE GONNA POINT OUT HIS RACE WHY NOT POINT OUT THAT OF OTHER BLACK CHARACTERS WHO ARE NICE PEOPLE. Sigh. This enraged me. Especially when Corban got essentially all the blame pinned on him. Like. Sigh. To summarise sans spoilers, race was unfairly depicted in this novel.
I DID very much enjoy the plot of this. I could poke a few holes, but I enjoyed that there was a good mystery and a lot of confusion and some thrilling suspense. The ending was excellent, and I held some respect for NAME because of that and her psychologist training (though a few school scenes felt as though they were specifically to give her certain character traits.) ( )