"Nothing surprises Adam Brandt anymore. As a forensic psychologist, he’s seen and heard everything.
That is, until he meets Kassie.
Because she claims to have a terrible gift – with one look into your eyes, she can see when and how you will die.
Adam doesn’t believe her, obviously.
But then a serial killer starts wreaking havoc across the city, and only Kassie seems to know where he’ll strike next.
Against all his intuition, Adam starts to believe her.
He just doesn’t realise how dangerous this trust might be . . ."
I was excited to read to read the book having recently read Eeny Meeny also by Arlidge and having heard Arlidge talk about it at Newcastle Noir earlier this year. Was Adam really going to kill Kassie? If yes how on earth did Arlidge connect the dots to make it work?
We had all read the book an all thought it was very heavily plotted. I liked this about the book however some thought it was almost too clever. He'd had a great idea and plotted like hell to make a story out of it. We discussed whether the book was even a crime novel at all. The killer was forgettable, the police sidelined, and the main theme was about whether you can see in to the future. I think it still fits the bill as a crime novel and loved the new elements to worn down genre. I also liked how different the lead Detective was. Grey was a confident, happily married woman, approaching middle age. Where else have you read a crime book with that kind of Detective?
We discussed Miller and her red herring which we thought was a week link in the plot. Why include her to then be so swiftly despatched? The plot was certainly jam packed making somethings, such as Karrie's grandma forseeing the holocust slip my mind. We liked how Kassie, who was only trying to help, was caught up as a suspect but didn't necessarily like her or Adam. A lot of the character's didn't feel well rounded enough to like which some of us struggled with when it came to liking the book.
Faith, Adam's wife seemed to strike a chord with everyone. At first she was too sickly sweet but some of us disliked her story so much it totally put them off the book. I thought her choice of name interesting. She had faith in Kassie's ability. Adam didn't and he ended up losing his wife - Faith.
We discussed how American the book was, given that Arlidge is very English and his previous works have all been set in the UK. We did find ourselves however drifting from talking about the book, always a sign of how good the book actually is. If it doesn't hold our attention at the group it's not normally a high scorer. The scores were very wide ranging from a 3 to an 8 with an average of 6.
Next book is Nancy Mitford's A Christmas Pudding.
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