Review: Increasingly implausible
Rating: 2 out of 5
Date: 07 26, 2011
I really liked the first half of this book - Annika, living in France, is drawn into an online community for authors.  Since she spends her days working and her nights caring for her obnoxious invalid husband, she's especially vulnerable to the attention and validation she receives on the website.  She spends more and more time there and eventually forms a bond with Seebee, a charming, if sex-crazed, drunk.  He's living in England and he has relationship problems of his own.  The update of "Strangers on a Train" for the internet age was interesting and both characters were well-crafted, especially Annika.  She kept making worse and worse decisions, but her personality and past made it all make sense.Unfortunately, as the book progressed, it became more and more implausible.  At this point, I will be discussing some specific details from the second half of the book.  They aren't really spoilers, but you may not want to read if you're sensitive to things like that.  It didn't ring true at all that all the main players from the web site - some of them middle-class Americans - were able to travel to England at the drop of a hat.  Have the authors checked plane ticket prices recently?  I understand it is a mystery classic to gather all the main players in one place (and what better place than an isolated English country house?), but if you choose a specific set-up for your novel, you can't just abandon it for the dénouement from an entirely different book.I agree with another reviewer that the identity of the actual villain was telegraphed explicitly - this removed some of the pleasure from the book.  I was also really taken aback by the way Sebastian, a gay character, was portrayed - it just seemed kind of hateful.  He was described as having a lisp and then his dialogue made the lisp explicit.  It felt unnecessary.The first half of this book was a high three star, maybe even four star book.  But as it became increasingly remote from reality, I enjoyed it less and less.