Review: complex
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 08 16, 2013
This is not easy for me to review. There was so much I didn't like but I could not put it down. There is no question, it is very well written. But it is very narrative and I like dialogue driven books. I never put a book down immediately. I have read books that the first chapter was very narrative. Setting a mood, a time, a place, some backstory. Then went on to be a book I enjoyed. So I always give a well written book a chance. And this is very well written. But after a couple of chapters, I put it down. Nothing says I have to read a book. But the book compelled me to pick it up again and read. And that says it all. A book that is so much what I don't like in a book and yet I couldn't help myself. I had to read it. It is very psychologically complex. A large part of the book is inside the head of young lawyer Catherine Monsigny. As a very young child she was present when her mother was brutally murdered. Her father has never discussed it. Tried to protect her. But suddenly, when she goes to the Creuse for a case, she starts having flashes of memory. She is in the Creuse to defend a woman accused of murdering her husband. The young African woman, Myriam, is accused of murdering the much older Gaston who married her because her papers were irregular and he wanted a life, denied to him by his overbearing wealthy mother until she died when he was sixty. Catherine is in such turmoil. The client she is not sure about. The father who will not open up to her. The lover who... I'll let you find out. This is a book full of red herrings and twists leading up to an unexpected and tragic ending that leads to a new life. Like me, you will be glad you read it.