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A review by ncrabb
Killing Me Softly by Nicci French
4.0
It all begins as an incredible adventure into passion that gets more exhilarating with each passing moment. Alice Loudon lives a quiet London life. She has a relatively nondescript boyfriend with whom she lives, and friends who eagerly include her in their circle of activities.
That all changes on a fateful day when she exchanges a lingering look with a man who utterly shakes her up and rearranges every aspect of her life. They ultimately engage in a frothy quickie in his flat, and his skills as a love maker are apparently unparalleled. He is Adam, a mountain climber widely touted as a hero among other climbers for his work in saving a group of people on a particularly dangerous climb.
So completely smitten is Alice with Adam that she ends her relationship with the nondescript boyfriend, packs her things, and moves into Adam's place. As his darkening influence over her grows, her willingness to associate with others decreases until she is thoroughly isolated from the people and things that once mattered. Her life is filled with Adam, but in a dark twisted way. When she begins to express her fears and concerns, no one will listen to her. After all, the girl must be mad, right? He's the great hero--the real good guy. Her fear that he will some day kill her is mere paranoia on her part.
This is a gritty and dark story that all too many women will relate to in one way or another. The seemingly perfect man turns out to be the very personification of hell, but no one will listen to you or even take your side. This is a gripping psychologically suspenseful story of gradual horror and identity change. It is not Adam who has changed, but Alice herself. I was constantly reminded of the old experiment of placing the frog into the water and ever so gradually turning up the heat until the frog is dead. These authors skillfully turn up the heat ever so slowly, allowing you to see what is happening to Alice. So intricately is this dark tale woven that you find yourself engulfed in tension, hoping someone somewhere will listen to her. You'll also be left amazed and frightened at how easy it is to change one's identity in an abusive relationship. I would not be at all surprised that this became a Lifetime movie. It's exactly the kind of plot Lifetime would gravitate to, minus the low-budget cheesiness that is a trademark of Lifetime movies. Indeed, this is a jarring, disturbing story that will chill you and leave you shaken.
I would be fascinated to learn more about the authors's relationship to the London police. In all of their books I've read so far, the police are portrayed largely as ham-handed buffoons whose mistakes are legion and whose successes are almost matters of luck rather than skill.
I can't say that I always like the characters these authors create. They're all a bit quick to hit the sheets with whatever moves, and their propensity to smoke more and profane louder than anyone else in the room is legendary. That said, none of them are cookie-cutter one-dimensional people. There's a complicated darkness about these women, and their lives are written with such skill that you cheer for them and badly want them to succeed. You even find it easier than it should be to forgive them for those seemingly out-of-character acts of stupidity in which some of them engage from time to time. This book's title is appropriate indeed. So pillowy soft is the psychological shroud in which Alice is gradually wrapped that you will be deeply saddened at the change in Alice, highly sympathetic to her circumstances, and genuinely troubled by the reality that you almost certainly associate with women who, like Alice, are losing the very essence of self, paralyzed and helpless as that self--that identity is sucked into a hellish vortex of shadow and terror. French does a masterful job of subtly reminding you that women who are abuse victims aren't uneducated pathetic creatures who step blissfully and cluelessly into bad relationships. Instead, they are all too often beautiful, capable women who offer much to a world that won't extend a lifeline when that intelligence and beauty is overshadowed by fear and uncertainty.
That all changes on a fateful day when she exchanges a lingering look with a man who utterly shakes her up and rearranges every aspect of her life. They ultimately engage in a frothy quickie in his flat, and his skills as a love maker are apparently unparalleled. He is Adam, a mountain climber widely touted as a hero among other climbers for his work in saving a group of people on a particularly dangerous climb.
So completely smitten is Alice with Adam that she ends her relationship with the nondescript boyfriend, packs her things, and moves into Adam's place. As his darkening influence over her grows, her willingness to associate with others decreases until she is thoroughly isolated from the people and things that once mattered. Her life is filled with Adam, but in a dark twisted way. When she begins to express her fears and concerns, no one will listen to her. After all, the girl must be mad, right? He's the great hero--the real good guy. Her fear that he will some day kill her is mere paranoia on her part.
This is a gritty and dark story that all too many women will relate to in one way or another. The seemingly perfect man turns out to be the very personification of hell, but no one will listen to you or even take your side. This is a gripping psychologically suspenseful story of gradual horror and identity change. It is not Adam who has changed, but Alice herself. I was constantly reminded of the old experiment of placing the frog into the water and ever so gradually turning up the heat until the frog is dead. These authors skillfully turn up the heat ever so slowly, allowing you to see what is happening to Alice. So intricately is this dark tale woven that you find yourself engulfed in tension, hoping someone somewhere will listen to her. You'll also be left amazed and frightened at how easy it is to change one's identity in an abusive relationship. I would not be at all surprised that this became a Lifetime movie. It's exactly the kind of plot Lifetime would gravitate to, minus the low-budget cheesiness that is a trademark of Lifetime movies. Indeed, this is a jarring, disturbing story that will chill you and leave you shaken.
I would be fascinated to learn more about the authors's relationship to the London police. In all of their books I've read so far, the police are portrayed largely as ham-handed buffoons whose mistakes are legion and whose successes are almost matters of luck rather than skill.
I can't say that I always like the characters these authors create. They're all a bit quick to hit the sheets with whatever moves, and their propensity to smoke more and profane louder than anyone else in the room is legendary. That said, none of them are cookie-cutter one-dimensional people. There's a complicated darkness about these women, and their lives are written with such skill that you cheer for them and badly want them to succeed. You even find it easier than it should be to forgive them for those seemingly out-of-character acts of stupidity in which some of them engage from time to time. This book's title is appropriate indeed. So pillowy soft is the psychological shroud in which Alice is gradually wrapped that you will be deeply saddened at the change in Alice, highly sympathetic to her circumstances, and genuinely troubled by the reality that you almost certainly associate with women who, like Alice, are losing the very essence of self, paralyzed and helpless as that self--that identity is sucked into a hellish vortex of shadow and terror. French does a masterful job of subtly reminding you that women who are abuse victims aren't uneducated pathetic creatures who step blissfully and cluelessly into bad relationships. Instead, they are all too often beautiful, capable women who offer much to a world that won't extend a lifeline when that intelligence and beauty is overshadowed by fear and uncertainty.