She's Never Coming Back by Hans Kopel

Bookcase 10's offering She's Never Coming Back was a very average book. The cover quotes some Swedish publication, saying She's Never Coming Back was "The most terrifying book I have ever read". Well whoever says that obviously hasn't been to Dorking library otherwise they'd find several books with a virtually identical story.

The book reading public seem to have an endless desire for tales of attractive women locked away in basements by some madman, while some intrepid hero hunts them down. This is yet another variation on the same theme. The only difference is the "madman" is in fact a couple avenging the suicide of their daughter 20 years ago, and the intrepid hero is someone who happened to go to school with the victim and has never seen her in the intervening time. Based upon the most flimsy of evidence the intrepid hero gradually pieces together the story. The victim is imprisoned in a house opposite where she lives which is at least an original touch and adds to the story a bit.

I can forgive massive coincidences and unlikely events in the plot, if the story is a good one and the characters are believable, but She's Never Coming Back fails on this front too. The story has multiple voices and it's hard to really feel any them are written from the heart, and none of them really act in a credible way. I award this book 4/10.

Bookcase 11 is the final bookcase in the Crime and Thriller section (H-K) until my next circuit of the library when I will complete the section. I had the full selection of books to choose from on case 11 as there were no authors I head read before on it. I really struggled to find anything that looked interesting on this bookcase and in the end I plumped for Low Life by Ryan David Jahn.

This is an American thriller which centres around murder and identify theft, as does The Talented Mr Ripley by one of my favourite authors Patricia Highsmith. Let's hope it's half as good!