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A review by ojtheviking
The Man Who Didn't Call by Rosie Walsh
2.0
First of all, I don't know why this novel has two different titles; I can't imagine that the content of the book varies depending on which title it has, but for what it's worth, the copy I had picked up was the one called The Man Who Didn't Call.
Sometimes, when I'm at my local bookstore, looking at titles that might be interesting to check out, I take out my phone and search for information to make sure that it's not the fifth book in a series or something. Sure, there are many crime series written as stand-alone stories simply with the same detective as the main character, for example, but I guess I'm a little bit OCD about still wanting to start with the first book in that case. Besides, when it comes to a series like the Norwegian crime books by Jo Nesbø about detective Harry Hole, the stories are part stand-alone, part continuous, with some character development continuing from one installment to the next, which is also why I wouldn't want to start with the fifth book in the series and be confused about some character dynamics and their backstories.
All of this is a long-winded way to say that when I looked up The Man Who Didn't Call, I saw that its main labels were romance, mystery, and thriller. After having read this, I feel that the thriller label is perhaps a bit overstated, or somewhat exaggerated. Maybe if one could say there is such a thing as an emotional thriller, say, as opposed to a psychological one, I can agree. As for the mystery label, fair enough, it did set up a scenario that seemed puzzling, which is kind of an intentional adjective on my part, because the structure of this novel starts out with segments being pieces of a puzzle, a bit scattered around before things eventually start to fall into place.
The writing is decent, and along the way, Walsh utilizes different ways and perspectives from which the story progresses. In some chapters, the story is narrated in first-person, while others are told through the epistolary method, via letters or Facebook messages. And as if to make sure the various puzzle pieces are sufficiently scattered to begin with, the story skips a little back and forth in time as well. It's an ambitious approach, but as I said, Walsh pulls it off competently enough, albeit ultimately more with a slice-of-life feel than the sort of suspense you might expect when you see labels like thriller and mystery.
I suppose it's just that the way things were set up in the beginning, it felt like there was an attempt to make a romance story more compelling by using a partly nonlinear narrative that would keep you guessing for a while. It did keep me guessing, but it also made me imagine potential plot twists that never arrived. It's almost like our attention was drawn towards a mystery to sort of mask the occasional melodramatic tendencies of a not-so-realistic premise. A good thriller with plot twists and a lot of suspense can have some slightly over-the-top moments that are just part of the fun and require some suspension of disbelief, but as this went more along the aforementioned slice-of-life route, the in-book universe was grounded enough in reality that the unrealistic quality of some of the circumstances became a bit more glaring that they might have been in another context.
It is not my intention that any of this comes across as me metaphorically gesturing a finger down my throat because it's a romantic story. I'm open-minded about any genre as such. But just like how books from any other genre - thriller, sci-fi, horror, you name it - enthrall me while others disappoint, so can simpler stories such as this one. Because that's what it is ultimately, a simple story that initially comes across as more complex. And while it didn't disappoint me to the point of earning my resentment, it was still a different story than I originally thought it would be.
Sometimes, when I'm at my local bookstore, looking at titles that might be interesting to check out, I take out my phone and search for information to make sure that it's not the fifth book in a series or something. Sure, there are many crime series written as stand-alone stories simply with the same detective as the main character, for example, but I guess I'm a little bit OCD about still wanting to start with the first book in that case. Besides, when it comes to a series like the Norwegian crime books by Jo Nesbø about detective Harry Hole, the stories are part stand-alone, part continuous, with some character development continuing from one installment to the next, which is also why I wouldn't want to start with the fifth book in the series and be confused about some character dynamics and their backstories.
All of this is a long-winded way to say that when I looked up The Man Who Didn't Call, I saw that its main labels were romance, mystery, and thriller. After having read this, I feel that the thriller label is perhaps a bit overstated, or somewhat exaggerated. Maybe if one could say there is such a thing as an emotional thriller, say, as opposed to a psychological one, I can agree. As for the mystery label, fair enough, it did set up a scenario that seemed puzzling, which is kind of an intentional adjective on my part, because the structure of this novel starts out with segments being pieces of a puzzle, a bit scattered around before things eventually start to fall into place.
The writing is decent, and along the way, Walsh utilizes different ways and perspectives from which the story progresses. In some chapters, the story is narrated in first-person, while others are told through the epistolary method, via letters or Facebook messages. And as if to make sure the various puzzle pieces are sufficiently scattered to begin with, the story skips a little back and forth in time as well. It's an ambitious approach, but as I said, Walsh pulls it off competently enough, albeit ultimately more with a slice-of-life feel than the sort of suspense you might expect when you see labels like thriller and mystery.
I suppose it's just that the way things were set up in the beginning, it felt like there was an attempt to make a romance story more compelling by using a partly nonlinear narrative that would keep you guessing for a while. It did keep me guessing, but it also made me imagine potential plot twists that never arrived. It's almost like our attention was drawn towards a mystery to sort of mask the occasional melodramatic tendencies of a not-so-realistic premise. A good thriller with plot twists and a lot of suspense can have some slightly over-the-top moments that are just part of the fun and require some suspension of disbelief, but as this went more along the aforementioned slice-of-life route, the in-book universe was grounded enough in reality that the unrealistic quality of some of the circumstances became a bit more glaring that they might have been in another context.
It is not my intention that any of this comes across as me metaphorically gesturing a finger down my throat because it's a romantic story. I'm open-minded about any genre as such. But just like how books from any other genre - thriller, sci-fi, horror, you name it - enthrall me while others disappoint, so can simpler stories such as this one. Because that's what it is ultimately, a simple story that initially comes across as more complex. And while it didn't disappoint me to the point of earning my resentment, it was still a different story than I originally thought it would be.