berkind

Oooh, I liked this one. I thought it was really well-written, lyrical in places, the characterization was excellent, and the plot kept me reading. There are two main mysteries here -- in 1984, three children, friends, went in the woods and disappeared. One was found the next day, mute, with no knowledge of anything that happened, his shoes filled with blood not his own. Got your interest, right? It did mine. Well that kid grows up to be a police detective and now, in the present, gets involved with the murder of another child in the same woods. The second mystery, the modern one, is solved. The first mystery, our protagonist's personal mystery, isn't. On Amazon the reviews are equally split all the way down from 5 stars to one star and even here on GoodReads there's a lot of the same split. Interesting. I think it's because the first mystery, really the more interesting one, isn't solved that drives people nuts. It itches a bit, like a bug bite you can't reach. I had to create my own theory about what happened to Adam's two friends and it's a doozy. (I'll keep it to myself so as not to be too spoilerish.) I love the first-person narration, and I love how French uses the limitations of it to increase the suspense. Also, and sort of as a side note, French's character treatment of psychopathy is EXCELLENT. Really spot on. I thought she did an exceptionally realistic job (not a Hollywood job) of it. And yea! There's a sequel (of sorts.)

2022-10-01 18:04