Friday, April 12, 2013

Blue Monday by Nicci French

Blue Monday (Frieda Klein #1)
Frieda Klein is a solitary, incisive psychotherapist who spends her sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern London. She believes that the world is a messy, uncontrollable place, but what we can control is what is inside our heads. This attitude is reflected in her own life, which is an austere one of refuge, personal integrity, and order.

The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, Frieda cannot ignore the coincidence: one of her patients has been having dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A red-haired child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew. She finds herself in the center of the investigation, serving as the reluctant sidekick of the chief inspector.

Drawing readers into a haunting world in which the terrors of the mind have spilled over into real life, Blue Monday introduces a compelling protagonist and a chilling mystery that will appeal to readers of dark crime fiction and fans of In Treatment and The Killing.

This is a fabulous psychological thriller that will keep you up long into the night to find out just what happens next.
Like all good thrillers, the plot starts at once and never really stops. Although we don’t see all the connections at first, we are riveted by the few story lines to which we are introduced. The writing is crisp, sharp, just like a thriller should be, letting the pages slide by without us noticing them.
Frieda, the protagonist, is a cleverly written psychoanalyst with the perfect amount of edge to make her a fun character to follow. Add to that a strange European named Josef and a disturbed man experiencing unexplainable panic attacks, and we have a rich narrative with just the right amount of tension. This has to be one of my favorite thrillers I’ve read this year, mainly because the plot is so nicely handled and what could turn into a gimmick actually feels plausible.
I highly recommend this book for all lovers of mysteries and thrillers.






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