One of Us

Is "Gone Girl" going to be the trend now? Terrifically well written crime thrillers that spill the beans in the early pages?

I enjoy the classical approach which invites the reader to solve a mystery and so I am not 100% behind Ms O'Dell's early reveal of the killer's identity. I admit, though, that it would be hard to ensnare this particular killer using a more conventional approach. This minor protest aside, I enjoyed the story. Sheridan Doyle and his family are well drawn, as is the community of Lost Creek, PA. I hope we will meet Sheridan again soon.

I received an uncorrected advance review copy of "One of Us" by Tawni O'Dell (Gallery Books). I hope the verb "hanged" has been substituted for "hung" in the final edition.

Mental illness is at the heart of Tawni O’Dell’s newest novel. One of Us explores those who struggle with mental illness and their loved ones who suffer on their behalf. Danny Doyle, as an expert forensic psychologist, provides insight into both mindsets. In doing so, he offers readers a unique glimpse into the tricky trappings of an unhealthy mind as well as the consequences of such illnesses, unintended or otherwise, on loved ones. However, Danny is not the only narrator. While Danny is only an expert on mental illness and a direct witness to his mother’s battles, the second narrator provides readers with a first-hand look inside the mind of someone lacking in emotion and conscience. There is an obsessive compulsion to be the show more most intelligent, calmest, and more rational person in any given situation; anyone who stands in the way of that compulsion meets a ruthless ending. This narrator’s tale is every bit as chilling as Danny’s acceptance of serial killers, if not more so.

Mental illness is not the only theme at work in One of Us. Tragedy and loss are also themes within the thriller/drama. Danny and his grandfather must deal with tragedy and loss every day thanks to his mother’s mental illness. However, these themes go beyond the individual characters. For, every citizen of Lost Creek knows someone who was injured or killed in the mines. All of the descendants of the key players in the ill-fated rebellion remain in town, still earning a living from the mines. The still-standing gallows keep the townspeople from ever being able to forget what happened which, in turn, keeps the town divided into the haves and the have-nots, those whose ancestors participated in the rebellion and those who brought down the rebellion. For a town so rooted in loss and despair, the events that unfold within One of Us are just one more proof of the harshness of life and yet provides a fitting closure to the festering wounds of history.

The characters within One of Us are quite vibrant. There is a coldness within Danny that mirrors the second narrator’s and an obsession among several main characters with appearance and designer labels that mimics Patrick Batemen from American Psycho. This can only be deliberate on Ms. O’Dell’s part given the nature of the second narrator and what one discovers about them both. In contrast to the two narrators, the other characters are delightfully quirky. Tommy is a force of nature, hilarious and gruff but with a sweet side that appears more often than not. Rafe is equally intriguing. His checkered past only adds to his seriousness and deliberateness seen when he is working. Then there is everyone else within and around town – everything one would expect in a small town without being clichéd or too cartoonish. This eclectic cast provides some bright moments in an otherwise somber novel.

One of Us touches on everything from child abuse to the death penalty, alcoholism to gender identity, abject poverty to unimaginable wealth and privilege, and more. While breaking down such barriers as economic status, the themes of mental illness and loss also serve to heighten the discrepancies between them as far as they relate to the inhabitants of Lost Creek. While the two narrators may be cold and distant, the story has heart and compassion, which undercuts the desperation and seriousness of the dead body and mysterious happenings in Lost Creek. The story is as much psychological as it is suspenseful, and the resulting uncovered secrets are powerful in what they reveal about the characters as well as humanity. In all, One of Us is a well-written, intriguing story that draws on multiple elements of story-writing to capture a reader’s attention and human nature’s fascinating with mental illness and deception to keep it. show less

4.5 stars.

Set in a small coal mining town in Pennsylvania, Tawni O'Dell's One of Us is a riveting and complex psychological thriller. This spellbinding story has a richly drawn cast of colorful characters, a very intriguing mystery and a compelling storyline.

Dr. Sheridan "Danny" Doyle might have escaped his small home town of Lost Creek but the memories of his youth still haunt him. The legacy of his childhood is not one that can be easily forgotten (his mother's battle with mental illness and subsequent conviction for killing her baby girl) or forgiven (the abuse he suffered at the hands of his father). The bright spots in his dysfunctional past are the relationships he enjoys with his maternal grandfather, Tommy, and local police show more officer Rafe Malloy. After learning that his now ninety-six year old grandfather has recently been seriously ill, Danny returns to Lost Creek, where he is immediately caught up in events that lead to some startling revelations about long ago events.

One of Us is written in first person and alternates between two very different points of view. Both narrators have escaped Lost Creek but each have returned at around the same time, but for very different reasons. It is also interesting to note that they come from completely diverse socio-economic backgrounds but they both have deep roots in the local community and their families lives are inexplicably linked through the local mine.

Danny's family has worked in the Dawes' coal mine since his ancestors immigrated from Ireland and until Danny, they were unable to escape their hardscrabble life as coal miners. Danny's success is hard won and his fascination with the human mind has resulted in a very successful career as a forensic psychologist. He delves deep into the psyche of serial killers but interestingly enough, Danny's expertise is lost on himself as he continues to battle the demons of his past.

Lost Creek is bleak and poverty stricken, but it is the perfect setting for the somewhat dark atmosphere of the unfolding story. The townspeople are hardworking but fighting to make ends meet. It is a town where families are deeply entrenched in a class struggle of sorts with the wealthy Dawes' family and the memory of the long ago hangings of their descendants are never forgotten.

One of Us unfolds slowly but steadily and the seemingly unrelated storylines gradually combine into a dramatic and shocking climax. It is a somber story but brief snatches of humor lighten the tone. Tawni O'Dell masterfully combines the past and present into an incredibly fascinating mystery that is sure to be a hit with fans of the crime solving genre. show less

One of Us by Tawni O'Dell is a highly recommended psychological thriller that, although light on the suspense, is extremely well written.

Famous TV forensic psychologist, Dr. Sheridan Doyle is currently living in Philadelphia, but he grew up as an abused child in a dysfunctional family in a coal mining town. Lost Creek is famous for the gallows where some rebellious miners, the Nellie O'Neills, were hanged in the late 19th century. The mine is still in possession of the Dawes family, the same wealthy family who owned it years ago. Sheridan or Danny as he is known in Lost Creek, grew up hearing the stories from his beloved grandfather, Tommy, the one person who saved him from his father. When he was growing up, Danny's mother was in jail show more for murder.

Danny is back in Lost Creek to see 96 year old Tommy when he discovers a body at the gallows. This discovery leads the town to wonder if there is a paranormal explanation for the murder or is something else going on? As in any small town, everyone knows who is related and there are plenty of secrets people are hiding. It's also clear that the town of Lost Creek has obsessed over the story of the doomed miners for years.

The story is told from the viewpoints of Danny, a descendant of one of the miners, and Scarlet Dawes, daughter of the wealthy family who owns the mine. Clearly, Danny is as psychologically damaged as the killer.

The writing is excellent and O'Dell does a nice job developing her characters in this very much character driven story. Basically, there is no great mystery here regarding who the guilty party is and even much of the why is not that surprising. This is not a novel like Gone Girl or even one with a great deal of suspense. Rather is is more a novel of psychological insight into several damaged characters. It also brings to light the effects of poverty on the residents of the small coal mining town. It is an imminently readable and compelling novel.

Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Gallery Books for review purposes. show less

READ IN ENGLISH

Read all my reviews on http://urlphantomhive.booklikes.com

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review, thank you!

Publication date: August 19th 2014

Dr. Sheridan "Danny" Doyle is now a famous psychologist in Philadelphia, but used to be an outcast with his irresponsible father and mentally ill mother who's in jail. Raised by his grandfather, who's grandfather was executed before the eyes of his father as one of the Nellies, a group of rebellious Irish miners. However, the past is far from dead in Lost Creek.

It started off very good. I could immediately feel that this was a community that's - almost with every step they take - still strung to the past. The gallows show more were never torn down, there are the NONs, there's a museum, and most of people believe the whole place is haunted.There are few people in Lost Creek that are not somehow related to the men, the Nellies, that died there in the 19th century. The mines still run, and are still in the hands of the same family, the Dawes. Thus everyone in the village is still dependent on them. Danny has freed himself from this, but gets drawn back into it when he returns to Lost Creek to look after his sick grandfather Tommy, and stumbles upon a dead body near the gallows.

I was from the very beginning drawn into the story, but this somehow stopped after about 100 pages, when the POV switches between Danny and Scarlet (firstborn daughter of Dawes), who's a terribly unlike-able character. I don't mind reading about a psychopath, but she was just SO annoying, I found that I couldn't really care the same for the rest of the story. I still wanted to find out what happened (and what was written on that mysterious piece of paper), but mostly I just wanted to get rid of Scarlet. The writing was good and read fast, which would make this a perfect summer suspense had Scarlet not been such an annoying character...

A nice little touch of her lovely character

"I liked her well enough. She was no threat to me. My family had more money. I was prettier, smarter, and had a far superior wardrobe. I was better than her in every way that I wanted to be." *

* This was quoted from the reader's proof, and may have been corrected/changed in the final version, but I haven't been able to check. show less

The story is told, in turns, by Sheridan “Danny” Doyle, a successful forensic psychologist, and Scarlet Dawes, the daughter of a wealthy mine owner. As children, both lived in Lost Creek; as adults he has relocated to Philadelphia while she calls Paris home. Drawn back to his hometown to care for his ill grandfather, Danny soon finds himself in the midst of a murder mystery that threatens to change everything he and the residents of this small mining town have ever known.

This is not a mystery of identifying the murderer but one of identifying the causes looming behind the murders. The crisp writing and fast pace of the story keep the reader immersed in the intrigue and the web of the past that has defined these two families.

There show more is a frustrating misstep in this book, one that creates a constant need for the reader to check the cover of the book for reassurance that it hasn’t somehow managed to morph itself into Fashion Weekly. Never have I read so much and cared so little about what the characters in a story are wearing. The annoying label-naming and extraneous descriptions of everyone’s clothing pulls the reader out of an otherwise absorbing story and instills an almost uncontrollable desire to take a really sharp pair of scissors to all those wardrobes, no matter what label may be sewn inside them. show less

This is the first Tawni O'Dell book that I have read, and I must say that I was really impressed. Her writing is very easy to read and flows nicely throughout the whole book. She certainly knows how to keep the reader hungry for the next reveal and I read the book in two days.

O'Dell's depiction of a small town struggling to survive after the closing of the coal mines that created it is haunting and powerful. She does not paint the town with the stereotypical paintbrush of a down-on-its-heels mining town. This town is full of life and more than enough secrets to go around. Despair does not lead the town's story and this is refreshing.

O'Dell carefully weaves the shocking treatment of immigrant miners by the coal barons with the show more present-day people who are still trying to redefine themselves and their legacy after the closing of the mines. She drives home just how trapped those immigrant miners and their families were and she clearly shows how hard, if not impossible, it is to pick up and move away from everyone and everything you've ever known. Her main character, Danny, thinks he has done that, and yet here he is, back in his hometown and up to his neck in secrets and murder.

I did find the reveal of the serial killer to be a little early. I would have rather wondered a while longer instead of seeing the person going about their nasty business. After that the suspense is all about the big family secret Danny's father is hiding and about how Danny is going to catch the killer. I felt strongly that the ending was a foregone conclusion, and while the author does throw in a twist at the end, I was a bit disappointed to have predicted it so early.

Overall, this is a solid mystery. I looked up her other books to possibly read but when I saw that they are all about small mining towns, I decided to wait and pace myself a bit so that I don't get sick of that atmosphere. She creates it beautifully and I look forward to enjoying it again in the future. show less