Search This Blog

Thursday, July 04, 2013

Accidents Happen by Louise Millar

Kate Parker suffers from severe anxiety, and no wonder--her parents were killed in an accident on her wedding day, her happy marriage ended abruptly when her husband was murdered, her house has been broken into and her computer stolen.  Her in-laws try to understand her grief and anxiety, but eventually Kate's behavior becomes so paranoid they feel the need to step in and interfere.  

  Accidents Happen, but indeed, are all of the accidents and disturbing things that occur and that Kate tries to protect herself and her son Jack against (with an obsessive collection of statistics on accidents, crime, and illness) the result of her anxiety and paranoia?

Hmmm.  The novel reads quickly and is suspenseful, but when Kate's paranoia finally seems to be lessening (don't want to say too much here), I found her behavior little short of idiotic.  Easily manipulated?  Oh, yeah.   Sounds reasonable.

Kate made more sense to me in her paranoia, than when she begins her recovery.  If Kate had not been so easily persuaded to such elaborate foolishness, the novel would have had more tension.

And the master plan, years in the making?  Wow, this dish of revenge is served really, really cold.

A fast read, but despite my hopes, this one did not work for me.

NetGalley/Attria Books

Mystery.  2013.  Print version:  402 pages.

2 comments:

  1. I'm a bit more than half way through this book and what started off so well is kind of annoying me now. You said it perfectly, I liked Kate better when she started off all crazy! I'll continue to read it because I am interested in a couple of the characters and their fates but I don't have high hopes.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Iliana - Oh, good. I wasn't sure if anyone else would feel that Kate was getting weirder by following that "cure," or not. I've read several very positive reviews, but it did not seem reasonable to follow Jago's advice.

    ReplyDelete