I love winter, and I'm sad that this one is ending prematurely. I am trying hard not to feel cheated, or to be defeated by the mud.
I've been so grateful that a thriller has grabbed me tight and won't let me go during this depressing weather. It is Kimberly McReight's Where They Found Her. I'm more than halfway now, and I've been impressed at how McReight has so well brought to life the inner emotional worlds of her main characters. This is precisely what makes me turn the pages. A young married woman, a journalist with a husband and young child, is assigned to investigate a story of a dead infant found abandoned in a small town northwest of NYC. The presenting situation is that Molly experienced a stillborn birth just over a year ago. Loads of additional complications and complicated characters. Very, very well done, and you know I rarely say this about a thriller. This is the best thriller I've read since January 2018. Most disappoint, it's true. Kimberly McReight has received accolades and a number of awards for her books. Check out her website.
I think really good thrillers are few and far between. Possibly because they rely often on the unbelievable for their twist. But any genre that has well drawn inner emotional worlds of the main characters is bound to be good. That is what makes the thriller thrilling, the reader’s investment in the character, so that we really care when they are in danger.
ReplyDeleteI think you have expressed it better than I could have. You are so right--without the ability to make the main characters' inner emotional maelstroms alive, no thriller can be worth its twists and turns.
DeleteThis makes me want to ask you: Do you have a thriller that you thought was excellent?
Good question Judith! I really don't read a lot of thrillers. I guess Gone Girl counts? I know everyone hates it now and is tired of it but I really liked it a lot...the slow reveal of secrets and the shocking end. Plus, I felt the book made some interesting commentary on women in 21st century America and the expectations placed on them.
DeleteYes, Gone Girl indeed counts! I had read Flynn's first novel Sharp Objects first, and unfortunately Gone Girl did not, in my view, meet the brilliance of her debut. Sharp Objects, though, is not a thriller, per se. It has some characteristics of a thriller, but basically is not. And, sigh, a steady diet of thrillers end up numbing me after a while, so that's why I tend to read them only at certain times of the year. And how often I am disappointed, even in a book that receives stellar reviews.
DeleteAnd to your most important point: the way Gone Girl exposed, or highlighted, women in today's world. Yes, and that can never be expressed enough!
I went on to read Sharp Objects and Dark Places and thought they were very good as well. I will definitely read her next novel if she writes one. I haven't tried that novella The Grown Up yet.
DeleteI am glad you have found a thriller that is so good. It might be a bit too harrowing for me, not sure. But maybe someday.
ReplyDeleteNot having experienced snow like you have, I have never thought of all the mud after it ends. Sounds yucky.
I am now reading The Expats by Chris Pavone, set in Luxembourg, at least partially. It is a spy thriller, although I did not realize that when I started it. Very tense, but I really like the female protagonist.
Oh, how I enjoyed Pavone's Expats! I read it years and years ago, when it first came out. A spy thriller, yes, but it had so many other angles pulling for it in addition to that. A great read and great memory!
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