Jeff Abbott

MYSTERY/THRILLER
Jeff Abbott
Blame: A Thriller
Grand Central Publishing
Hardcover, 978-1-4555-5843-8, (also available as an e-book, an audiobook, and on Audible), 384 pgs., $26.00
July 18, 2017

“When you lose your memory, it’s a chance for the people around you to rewrite history.”

When she was seventeen, Jane Norton drove a SUV off a twisty road in an affluent Austin suburb, killing her best friend and next-door neighbor, David Hall. Jane suffered a closed-head injury that put her in a show more coma for four days and erased her memory of the three years preceding the accident (“The old Jane died; every version of David died”). Two years later, nineteen-year-old Jane is homeless, friendless, and family-less: she cannot bear to live in the house next door to David’s parents, and her mother refuses to move; her former friends turned on her, blaming her for popular golden-boy David’s death; she flunked out of college, unable to cope with the stress.

On the second anniversary of David’s death, Jane wakes to a message on social media: “I know what you claim you don’t remember, Jane. I know what happened that night. And I’m going to tell. All will pay.” When David’s mother, Perri, arrives at his grave that morning, “All will pay” is scrawled across the granite in white chalk. These taunts set in motion a chain of events prodding Jane’s memory awake, an intolerable threat to those who never forgot.

In Blame: A Thriller, Austin’s New York Times best-selling author Jeff Abbott explores the function of memory and its relation to identity, the corrosive effects of blame, the nature of regret, and the many forms of culpability. Jane says that “memories are the engines for our feelings.” If our memories are us, what happens when we don’t have memories?

Abbott’s characters are complex and diverse, and feel authentic. Technology is a character in Blame. It’s everywhere: Jane’s mother’s blog, the Dark Web, texting, social media, hackers. It’s fascinating to watch people react when the blame begins to spread, no longer confined to Jane. Perri’s paranoid descent is particularly affective as a study in grief. She is tightly-wound, brittle, ready to snap like a twig in cold weather. “[Jane] murdered the person Perri used to be,” Abbott writes.

He uncannily conjures the interiority of a teenage girl, and Jane’s flaws are refreshing—Abbott has resisted the temptation to perfect his protagonist. What if you recover your memory and discover you don’t like who you were? Blame has elements of a procedural with Jane as the investigator, her amateur sleuthing putting her in ever more danger as she gets closer to the mystery. Abbot presents a buffet of suspects with competing agendas. Who wants what from Jane? And how reliable is our narrator?

Writing with precision, Abbott concisely sets the stage in a page and a half, then incorporates twist after twist into a tight, fast-paced plot. The atmosphere is ominous, the sun-drenched gateway to the Texas hill country incongruously, viscerally creepy. Jane’s third-person narrative places the breadcrumbs masterfully, the momentum steadily escalating until this psychological suspense becomes an action thriller in the last fifty pages.

Abbott is a master craftsman, an architect, Racehorse Haynes building a case for reasonable doubt, brick by brick. Blame left me shaking my head in admiration for his mad skills.

Originally published in Lone Star Literary Life. show less

Jeff Abbott catches the atmosphere of small-town Texas to perfection in this, his first novel. His hero is Jordy Poteet, just returned from Boston to care for his mother who has Alzheimer's. In contrast to his job as editor in Boston, Jordy becomes the head librarian in his old hometown. His nemesis is Beta Harcher, a religious zealot who is singlehandedly attempting to censor many of the best books in the library. Jordy and Beta have a loud disagreement, and the next day Beta is found show more murdered. Jordy's old schoolmate Junebug, now the town sheriff, fingers Jordy as the chief suspect. Jordy sets out on his own investigation as an act of self-defense. He discovers a list of townspeople which Beta compiled and beside each name is a scripture reference. Jordy talks to each person on the list and looks up the Bible verses, in an attempt to solve the murder.

A lot of action is packed into these 248 pages. The cast of characters are a diverse lot. You will love some, hate some, and just feel sorry for the clueless ones. show less

This book was really fun!  It is told in the first person, in a chatty, cheerfully sarcastic manner that made me laugh.  The author does a really clever job of disguising the villain with misdirection right until the reveal at the end.  

Imagine, several years of your life just vanish as a result of an accident, but all you know is that the person you were with was killed and everyone blames you. This is situation Jeff Abbott tackles in Blame, an engaging thriller with an ending I didn't expect.

Jane Norton is hiding something, and although we vaguely know pretty early on what has happened to her, she is an amnesiac and not portrayed in the best light. Why was she in the car with David, the boy who died? Who wrote the note show more they found at the scene of the car crash, which appeared to be written in Jane's handwriting stating "I wish
we were dead together"?

The slow start of the story reflects her altered perception of things in a way which explores how she came to be in the state she is, piecing together what happened, in her own disorientated way. I felt sorry for her, yet slightly annoyed at her behaviour. Yes, she is flawed, but she is also scared and frustrated. Does she deserve the treatment some throw at her? Would you be able to forgive her if you knew the truth? As the story progressed I found I was beginning to revel in Jane's take no sh^t attitude and she grew on me even more.

I took a while to get into this, but glad I stuck it out. That's never a good expression to put into a review, but it is how I felt. Despite this, the plot did indeed gather speed and there were twists and turns galore, which raced to a final conclusion that made reading this book all worthwhile. show less