Book Report: Blue Monday

26. Nicci French, Blue Monday (2011) (9/27/18)

My sister-in-law recommended Nicci French (actually a wife-husband team, Nicci Gerrard and Sean French) and their insomniac psychotherapist pseudo-detective hero Frieda Klein. The New York Times snippet on the back cover calls it "a neat puzzle with a satisfying resolution and a terrific twist at the end"—to which I'd agree about the first part, but the "twist" was, I thought, quite predictable. Indeed, all the various twists were. The accumulation of events and facts had to go somewhere, and my suspicions proved correct, right down the line. (Well, one character turning up: that was a surprise. And yet not.)

Which doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the book. It might just mean I've been reading too many mysteries lately: either the solution is somewhat obvious or it comes out of left field. Rarely does it surprise just enough not to feel like a cheat, yet still give that pleasure of seeing that all the clues were there, and they add up.

I also felt it was somewhat contrived that this reluctant psychotherapist gets drawn so thoroughly into a police investigation. I know it happens on TV, but not in real life—does it? This investigation involves the disappearance of a child, which is tied to a similar disappearance twenty years before—which right there stretched credibility. Klein becomes involved because of a client she's treating who's suffering anxiety attacks and having strange dreams. And on it goes.

Yeah, maybe I've just been reading too many mysteries, and it's time to savor more serious—more "real-world"—fare. What I especially enjoyed about this book was the characters and their relationships. You don't need a mystery to make a book about people and relationships worth reading.