Blue Monday

Um. Okay. So I don't read this genre often. In fact I really haven't ever. This book was fucking brilliant. I guessed the major climactic twists but in a way that made it more enjoyable to read. I don't like to be titillated but I love a great story. This is both. Also, I couldn't help but imagine Lorraine Bracco ad Freida Klein and that's an extra star in its own right. I feel so alive after finishing this book and I'm excited to read more of the series. 5 stars if it were "better" written but it definitely was a good introduction to the genre for me.

Psychoanalyst Frieda Klein is my new hero. Smart, experienced, curious, honest, stands up for her principles, kind, and patient within limits. While friendly she isn't extroverted and is strongly protective of her personal space and time.

One of her patients describes a son he'd like to have in detail. Shortly after a young boy that matches this description is kidnapped. Dr. Klein visits the police to make them aware. But Detective Chief Inspector Karlsson, the lead investigator, is annoyed with her vague information. He's overwhelmed by the seriousness of the case itself, and by the many calls from the public with a pandora's box of nonsensical and outrageous responses of what happened to the boy.

I am very impressed with the plot, show more characters, dialog, and timing. But most of all with the incredible handling of relationships between the characters. Well done. And the ending is surprising and disturbing as well.

Excellent compelling read. show less

I have long been a fan of the husband and wife writing team that is known as Nicci French but up to now I have stuck to their stand-alone thrillers. I am excited to have now started their series about psychotherapist Frieda Klein. Blue Monday gets this series off to a stellar start. A dark, complicated story with a troubled, interesting main character and a gut wrenching plot about children made this book an intense read.

The book opens with a trip to the past, on a day in 1987 when a little girl called Rosie Vine and her younger sister, Joanna are on their way home from school. Rose is both resentful of having her younger sister trailing along behind her, and preoccupied with thoughts of their stop at the local sweet shop. Rosie gets to show more the shop first, but Joanna never arrives. She has vanished. Now some twenty two years later, another child has been taken in a similar manner. Dr. Frieda Klein is treating a troubled man and some of the things he says brings her to believe that he is somehow involved with the missing child. She feels she has no other choice but to report this to the police.

These authors excel at writing psychological thrillers. The words, plot and atmosphere are dark, haunting and suspenseful. There are a number of story-lines that are developed over the course of the book and not all have been resolved by the end so the reader is left wanting more. I get a sense that the authors are going to develop Frieda slowly. She is a solitary, prickly, difficult woman but she is starting to let some people into her life and I look forward to seeing how this group evolves over the course of the series and learning more about Frieda and her secrets. show less

I'm not a big mystery reader. I enjoy them, but they tend a bit too much to the formulaic for me, although I realize the irony given how much time I spend reading YA paranormal novels. Also, being a character-driven reader, I generally have trouble relating to the hard-boiled detective types.

That said, I really enjoyed reading this, perhaps even loved it. I have always been fascinated by the minds of criminals, along with everyone else apparently, given the popularity of shows like Criminal Minds. Blue Monday focuses on the kidnapping of young children, a girl and 20 years later a boy. The reader gets a third person view into the mind of every character, which really worked for this novel.

What I definitely loved was that the focus of show more the book, and the series, is Frieda. She is awesome and a character I can totally relate to, even in her desire to push people away. She is really why I so much enjoyed reading this book, because she really has a strength as a character. Plus, I liked that the mystery was from the perspective of a psychologist rather than a detective, which gave a different filter to the story.

I know I will be reading more Nicci French (Nicci Gerrard Sean French) novels in the future, especially the next Frieda Klein book. So glad there's more!

P.S. I really want you to know that this cover looks so much prettier in person, because it's all shiny. show less

Nicci French is actually a married couple who write as a team - Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. I haven't read them before, but the plot description grabbed me and I dug in.

I keep reading British thrillers that blow me away and are often by writers who are new to me - Sister by Rosamund Lupon and Now You See Me by S.J. Bolton come to mind. Blue Monday joined that category. There is something very delicate about the way this book is written and the way its story unfolds.

Against the backdrop of a child abduction, we are introduced to Frieda Klein, a psychoanalyst living very much inside of her head - a woman after my own heart because she walks all over London (just as I do all over Berkeley). The story of the child abduction and the show more various ways it comes to be connected to another abduction and, sort of, solved is the context that Frieda inhabits. In many ways the strength of the telling lies with the focus on character and relationship and inner voices, rather than the actual (very disturbing) set of crimes.

When one of Frieda's patients tells her of a dream that mirrors the recent abduction, she is forced out of her solitary chair and walks and out into the world, reluctantly joining the police in trying to find out what happened to this child. There are many twists and turns and a surprise at the end that I should have seen coming, but somehow didn't (very rare for me - good job, authors).

There are wonderful secondary characters, my favorite being Josef, the Ukrainian builder who appears in the book quite suddenly. I don't want to give too much away, but his appearance and subsequent involvement with events in the book is a highlight. Josef brings the real, practical world of maintaining the structures in a way that is real, interesting, and much needed. He is not living in his head, but in the world.

Add the starring role that London plays, a disturbing and effective mystery and you have a great read. I'll definitely look for the second in this series. show less

I requested this book from Netgalley, because the cover kind of drew me in. It's dark, mysterious and deep. Just like the book was.

I haven't read any books from this author, but I can safely say that she is really good. I loved the descriptions, the narrative, the voices. I loved the dialogues, the story and the action. It was all combined in a very good way.

What I didn't like were the many viewpoints that felt scattered. There were some times just a couple of sentences from a viewpoint and there was no switch indication. So, I was reading from one perspective and the next second I was in someone else's head. It got confusing. Another thing that didn't work for me was that the prologue started the mystery, then nothing happened toward show more its solving for the next 30-40% of the book. I'm not saying that those 30% were bad or not interesting. They were just going in a totally different direction.

I suppose it was all well thought out and planned, because in the end everything came in place. It's all acted out and revealed. Just in the moment of reading, it felt confusing and scattered.

The characters:
*Freida - she's a loner, who loves being by herself, undisturbed in her own little house, in her own world. She is afraid of getting close to people and prefers to live at a certain distance even from her own family. The only thing that gets her going are her patients with their mind problems that Frieda tries to solve. It's when she starts to meddle with one particular patient's mind that things get a little out of hand. But it was kind of awesome that Frieda never lost her cool. There was this one mistake she made which almost proved fatal for Matthew Faraday, an abducted 5-year old, but truth is that given the circumstances I couldn't really blame her.

*Inspector Karlsson - Ah, he was such a sweetheart. Through the whole book I felt like he was the proper match for Frieda. He had character and showed love, care and devotion. Not particularly to his own children, whom he loved by the way, but also to the case with the kidnapped Matthew. He wasn't the basic cop who is always portrait like a brainless idiot. Yet, he wouldn't have accomplished anything without the help of Frieda, because he had no experience in mind deciphering.

*Alan - poor thing. I felt so sorry for him. He was abandoned as a baby, manipulated through dreams, and never really given the chance to live.

*Dean - Ugh, I hated that man! And that little twist in the end? I totally knew it was coming, but that didn't mean I liked it at all. He did not deserve what happened to him. It really should've been the other way around. But I just knew that he was smart in that cunning sort of way. Nasty person.

And I can safely say that all the supporting characters played their roles pretty well. They made the story complete and intriguing. show less

Blue Monday begins with the disappearance of a five-year-old girl named Joanna, gone missing while walking home from school with her sister. When a little boy is abducted over twenty years later, Frieda Klein becomes concerned after one of her patients describes his dreams of a little boy with red hair who matches his description. She doesn't want to violate patient confidentially but decides to contact Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson to report her worries. Eventually she joins with the team of investigators to search for the missing boy and his kidnapper.

It took me a while to get involved in Blue Monday. The set up requires some extra care and, because it's the first of an anticipated eight book series, the main characters show more need some extra introduction. Once I got past the first quarter of the book it became quite interesting. Blue Monday is also well-written, the gritty London streets are very atmospheric and the characters are different and intriguing. Overall, this is an enjoyable, quick read that really draws you into the story. Suspenseful writing and great descriptions make this series one to follow and I plan to read the next book in the series, Tuesday's Gone. show less