Alexandra Andrews

I raced through Who Is Maud Dixon? and I regret that I couldn't restrain myself enough to digest it for longer.

Florence Darrow is a hugely compelling antihero - a compulsive copycat, a shapeshifting people pleaser, whose first instinct is to wear the skin of any remotely senior or successful person she meets to seize any chance to climb the greasy pole. Obsessed with becoming a famous writer, she is a woman with zero boundaries and zero conscience. A brilliantly written, meek sociopath with show more mummy issues, her interplay with Helen Wilcox is a genuinely compelling and unpredictable relationship that evolves in the most surprising of ways. The story that follows has twists aplenty, and only very occasionally strays into the absurd.

A really compelling mystery thriller that echoes The Talented Mr Ripley in all the right ways. show less

Recently, I was in the mood for a fast-paced thriller that was well-written and unpredictable and was sorely disappointed by the book I chose -- one that had been on more than a few "most anticipated" lists and which was marketed as a "literary thriller." And since I don't learn from experience, I picked up another fitting exactly the same bill. And this one was everything the other thriller was not. It sped along at a relentless pace, contained an unlikely quantity of twists and turns, show more featured two utter unlikeable and also fascinating characters and it was well-written and fun to read. I suspect that a few of the plot lines do not hold together under close examination, but I was so taken with this book, and I raced through it so quickly, that that didn't matter in the slightest.

The novel starts with Florence, small town Florida girl who went to the state university and then got a job with a New York publishing house, only to find herself well out of her comfort zone. Her fellow co-workers come from well-heeled, private school backgrounds, giving them a facility negotiating the New York social world that Florence feels she will never have. After a drunken encounter with an older man much higher up in the company, Florence makes some very bad decisions, which lead her to grabbing at a job offer to be the assistant of a reclusive best-selling author. The story begins with a set up that could easily sustain an entire novel, and uses it as an opener. From there, things become much wilder as Florence becomes more and more fascinated and curious about her secretive employer. When they both travel to Morocco to do some research for the next novel, things veer out of control. show less

The characters at odds in this suspense thriller were almost equally terrible, and thus it was hard to know who to root for, or how to feel about any kind of success or setbacks they had. But it was in fact suspenseful, and absorbing to watch, in a clear ode to the Talented Mr. Ripley.

This book started off slowly, and built slowly, but then the last few chapters were quick and full of tension! Florence Darrow is an aspiring author but no one is interested in her work. After an embarrassing incident with her boss, Florence loses her job. Then, she gets hired to work for the author known as Maud Dixon: Helen Wilcox.
Helen suggests that she and Florence travel to Morocco to research Helen’s latest book. When things go awry, they go awry in a big way! This is when the book show more becomes very interesting.
I don’t think you will see it coming! show less