When Zoe Walker sees her
photo in the classifieds section of a London newspaper, she is
determined to find out why it's there. There's no explanation: just a
grainy image, a website address and a phone number. She takes it home to
her family, who are convinced it's just someone who looks like Zoe. But
the next day the advert shows a photo of a different woman, and another
the day after that. Is it a mistake? A coincidence? Or is someone
keeping track of every move they make ...
Comment: I got interested in this book after reading some positive reviews here and there. Still, wasn't planning on reading it but found the book with an interesting discount so... I decided to give it a chance and see for myself if it lived up to the hype.
In this book we have Zoe as the protagonist, she is a almost forty woman living in London and using the underground everyday to and from work. One day she is checking one of those dismissed newspapers people leave behind and sees her picture in the ads section with a strange website link. At home, and discussing it with her family, they think it was just someone similar enough but Zoe is convinced it's really her.
Another protagonist is police officer Kelly, who has had a sort of breakdown before and was put in a less demanding position. Kelly is a very caring officer, struggling to just let victims go and her willingness to follow up on Zoe's call regarding the picture puts her in the middle of things. But what can be behind the strange ads?
I ended up liking reading this book. If it lives up to the hype I'm not certain because thrillers can be quite crazy in terms of imagination and plots but they still have to make sense for things to be properly understood. I think the final explanation about this wasn't as amazing as I expected.
The development of this story was interesting. I also liked that Zoe and Kelly's chapters were alternate so that we could follow the plot from two different sources and still have an understanding of what was slowly happening.
Both narrators were interesting to follow too and I especially liked officer Kelly... my romance reader side expected some clues about Kelly's potentially love interest (only in my head of course) but it isn't there. Zoe felt more like an everyday woman doing her daily life and facing something people shouldn't be thinking about much less living through but I suppose that is the point of this story.
Since this is a thriller, an important part of this plot is how it affects the reader's perspective. I didn't really feel the negative impact, though. I mean, I knew something not s good could happen but the psychological aspect wasn't as well achieved as I imagined. Not that I wanted to be afraid but this read pretty mild I'd say.
In part, the reason behind this is that the villain's motives and ideas to justify why the situation is happening is the most basic someone can imagine and not surprisingly enough. The strategy to put it into motion was also so silly. I was a little disappointed in the hows of everything. Dare I say it wasn't as creepy as it could? The author then tried to leave a strong impression with the end but I was left very disappointed with it because it ruined the expectations I build while reading about those characters, a specific one in particular.
The reading itself was engaging. I wanted to know what would happen, I wanted to see where things went so in terms of making me interested, this story is successful and I can understand the appeal for fans. But I expected something a little different too and the two things - plot and thriller - didn't really mesh as I hoped after so many comments on it. I actually would like to read another book by the author to compare but overall, this delivers on trying to impress but in terms of climax success I think I've read better.
Nevertheless, this was a good entertaining read.
Grade: 7/10
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