Review: Great Author, Not My Favorite Book of His
Rating: 3 out of 5
Date: 12 29, 2013
Dan blames himself for his wife and nephew’s untimely deaths when, after he admits to a one-night stand with his literary agent, his wife drives off angry and gets in a fatal crash. Until then, Dan had been on an upward climb, becoming a successful author, a career his wife urged him into after reading several of his buried short stories.The first third of this story had me hooked, but after the crash, something changed. The tone of the story became understandably darker and when Dan withdrew, sold his former home to live in a B&B; with a likable elderly couple, I wondered where things were headed.Dan settles in and helps the couple with day-to-day living, shuttling the wife, Millie, to hair appointments and enjoying burgers and beers with her husband. These don’t seem like the actions of a bad man, but that’s exactly what Dan turns into when he adopts the persona of “Jackson”, a character of his with a VERY dark secret.This is where the book lost me. What started off as a story about Dan regretting his one-night stand, turns into something else—not a mystery because we know what’s happening, not a thriller because there’s really no ticking clock, not a horror novel because while it takes a dark twist, it’s not ‘frightening’. The poignancy that endeared Dan to me, his reflection on a life well-lived, was exchanged for something that didn’t do it for me. I couldn’t make a logical connection how receiving sorrow was remedied by inflicting it, and for the first time, I walked away from one of this author’s books feeling unsatisfied. There’s some great stuff in here, some real emotion, but if you’re not a fan of rooting for a villain, you might not enjoy the bait and switch.