A review by tasmanian_bibliophile
The Dirty Secrets Club by Meg Gardiner
3.0
‘Each flash of the camera was a silent shriek’
This novel kept me turning the pages so rapidly that I didn’t actually stop to analyse the story. Which is probably a good thing: I’m not convinced that the various elements hang together well enough to provide a totally satisfying whole. Does it matter? Well, not to me. I was looking for an escapist novel and this book delivered.
There is a lot of action in this novel: not always coherent and not always believable. That will matter to some readers, and ordinarily it matters to me. But sometimes, it is good to suspend reality and just hop onto the rollercoaster.
Jo Beckett is a forensic psychiatrist who profiles victim’s lives in order to try to help solve their deaths. Lieutenant Amy Tang calls Jo Beckett to the crime scene after a high speed pursuit in San Francisco ends with four people dead and five injured. So, why did Callie Harding drive her car through a bridge railing? What is the Dirty Secrets Club, and what can Jo do to try to prevent what appear to be a related series of murder/suicides by high profile people? Jo herself looks to be an interesting character as do many of the other ‘good guys’ in this novel.
This was the first Meg Gardiner novel I’ve read, and it probably won’t be the last. I’m intrigued without being totally hooked.
This novel kept me turning the pages so rapidly that I didn’t actually stop to analyse the story. Which is probably a good thing: I’m not convinced that the various elements hang together well enough to provide a totally satisfying whole. Does it matter? Well, not to me. I was looking for an escapist novel and this book delivered.
There is a lot of action in this novel: not always coherent and not always believable. That will matter to some readers, and ordinarily it matters to me. But sometimes, it is good to suspend reality and just hop onto the rollercoaster.
Jo Beckett is a forensic psychiatrist who profiles victim’s lives in order to try to help solve their deaths. Lieutenant Amy Tang calls Jo Beckett to the crime scene after a high speed pursuit in San Francisco ends with four people dead and five injured. So, why did Callie Harding drive her car through a bridge railing? What is the Dirty Secrets Club, and what can Jo do to try to prevent what appear to be a related series of murder/suicides by high profile people? Jo herself looks to be an interesting character as do many of the other ‘good guys’ in this novel.
This was the first Meg Gardiner novel I’ve read, and it probably won’t be the last. I’m intrigued without being totally hooked.