Reviews

Land of the Living by Nicci French

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dovesfalling's review against another edition

4.0

What made (makes) this book so beautiful to me is twofold.

1. The casual elegance of the writing. Nicci French (for the purpose of just plain not feeling like typing out two names, I will ignore that this is a pseudonym and just pretend it's one author) is brilliant at sketching characters that feel like real people and for using spare, simple and yet beautiful prose. I really love her style and always have. It's especially evident in her earlier works and now in the Frieda Klein series.

2. The relationship between the three women, invisible, like a thread - but so strong that not even death shakes it. I thought this was a haunting river through the novel.

Beneath the Skin is not my favourite of French's novels (that award goes to Land of the Living, but it is one of her best, in my opinion.

Zoe, Jenny and Nadia are three women with a horrible connection. Each have been targeted by a killer - he sends them notes telling them what he's going to do to them. The tale begins with Zoe, a tiny, blonde schoolteacher with a suffocating flat she can't get rid of, an army of friends and a spot of fame after stopping a thief with a gigantic watermelon.

Zoe is

Spoiler

eventually murdered in the first act of the book - a twist I didn't see coming initially. It's unbelievably sad, because Zoe seems like such a nice person - and this is confirmed later on when Nadia meets her friend and she reminisces about how happy Zoe was right before her murder, and how she looked "like a little kid" in her GAP Kids t-shirt and skirt. I think the moment that Zoe is strangled is the moment the innocence is gone from the book. It's the moment the authors show you that anything is possible.

The second act of the novel begins with Jenny, a rich and very polished woman having her house completely gutted and remodeled, sending her normally very organized life into chaos. When the killer begins sending her obscene notes, she doesn't think very much of it. Until the police arrive. Jenny

Spoiler

is also murdered, and in a much crueler and more sadistic way than Zoe. French is skilled at only alluding to horror, but it's evident that Jenny is raped with an iron bar and garrotted. It's an ending made even worse because of Jenny's focus on perfection and her need to always seem presentable. In the moment of death and terror, she loses herself and it's extremely upsetting to me. It's interesting how grief-stricken I felt for Jenny - she wasn't exactly a lovely person, but you can see how she came to be that way, with an absent (cheating) husband and the pressure each day to be perfect. When you find out later on that her husband has moved in with his girlfriend and taken their son with him (who desperately misses his Mum) it's devastating.

Finally, the third act is Nadia. Nadia was my favourite character in the book - I think because she's so normal and doesn't take any BS and she works as a Clown. I mean, how cool. Nadia becomes involved

Spoiler

with the Chief Detective on the case, before she realizes there have been two women before her

and begins to look suspiciously at every person in her life - she knows the killer is close, but who? And why?

Beneath the Skin eloquently and skillfully explores the very nature of fear and how alone a person can feel in the midst of such chaos. It's not really about WHO the murderer is (this is evident by the middle of the book) it's the relationships, the sourness of disappointment, the suffocation of environment and the heartbreaking ache of grief.

dovesfalling's review against another edition

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5.0

One of my favourite thrillers, hands down.

Abbie wakes in the dark, hooded and bound. She's not sure where she is, what has happened to her. All she knows is that her head is banging, her breath is sour, her eyes are covered. Slowly, as time marches on, she realizes she's being held captive by a madman. He stuffs a gag in her throat, tells her he'll bleed her "like an animal" if she protests. He secures her to a wall with a wire noose, feeds her, clothes her, helps her to the bathroom. As Abbie realizes, he is her "God" and he can do whatever he wants with her. In the darkness, he whispers of other women he has killed, lists their names for Abbie. She dreams of going back to the "land of the living" but knows... she is dead.

Through ingenuity and luck, Abbie escapes. Only to find that no one believes her. The police think she's crazy. Her friends aren't sure. She's lost her memory and comes back to the world to find that in the week prior to her disappearance, she quit her job, spent large sums of money, had a short romance with someone who was not her abusive boyfriend, Terry, and started a new beginning.

In an effort to understand what led to the darkness she woke in, Abbie begins to re-trace her steps, following the ghost of herself in an eerie game of Grandmother's Footsteps. It's easy to believe that it could happen again. She could wake, hooded and bound.

French's writing is fantastic and Abbie is hugely relatable - one of their better female characters. Normally, as was the case with "The Safe House", I find their women characters irritating and cringe-worthy. Abbie is fascinating in her normality, and wonderfully strong without being unrealistic. French's genius is in the small details - the tiny things about life -- the wine Abbie drinks, the baths she takes, the meals she eats, the way her memories unfold like a flower. French never forgets about real life -- and it's refreshing.

As Abbie retraces her steps, she falls back into the same patterns, and begins an intense romance with Ben Brody, searches for her lost roommate, Jo Hooper. Of course, the beginning meets the end meets the beginning, and Abbie slowly finds out what befell her, what befell Jo, and finds *herself*, even if she never does regain her memory.

A seductive, startling, lovely book. I re-read it often and Abbie feels like an old friend. As her quest becomes more urgent, I follow her with bated breath. And I remember, the green leaf, the butterfly, the silver tree, the still water. Life. I remember.