Novel set in Overijssel 1961
Mystery set in LONDON (with the District Line at its heart)
18th October 2024
The Commuter by Emma Curtis, mystery set in London (with the District Line at its heart).
Rachel has married a wealthy man, Anthony Gordon, who is considerably older than herself. She has had to run the gauntlet of ‘gold digger’ from his daughter, Caroline and from the wider public. His ex-wife meekly leaves home and sets up with another man. Daughter Caroline continues to live in the marital home with Rachel and Anthony. It is not an easy dynamic.
The couple has an agreeable marriage until one day Rachel challenges her husband about Caroline’s errant and violent behaviour, suggesting in no uncertain terms that his indulgence is ruining the young woman.
Anthony’s response is to be violent with his new wife and the balance of the relationship is now permanently skewed. She then drinks too much at a party and runs off the road in her car and wakes from a coma to discover Anthony has been murdered. She is firmly in the frame as the perpetrator. She has no memory of the last few weeks, but we readers know that she has begun a journey of seduction on the District Line with someone called Sean, who, after only a few brief encounters, says “Rachel, if you want a baby, you can have a baby. We can make it happen“. That was the point to turn and run, I would have thought, but, no, of course she doesn’t and then her whole life implodes.
The cat is now firmly among the proverbial pigeons because, it transpires, Anthony has left pretty much everything to his new wife, Rachel, and has cut out his daughter Caroline.
Therapy is called for and Rachel alights upon Dominic, a clinical psychiatrist, having fortuitously found his card in her handbag. She has a single session, whereupon he drops all his carefully honed professional boundaries. It was at this point that I could feel my eyes rolling to the back of my head. How many times has an errant therapist been used as a plot device? It is an annoying and unbelievable trope (speaking professionally). Anyway, no more on that. I had been really invested in the novel until that point, and I still wanted to see how the story would pan out as it concluded its increasingly involved journey towards the climactic end.
I enjoyed this novel overall, the standard of writing throughout is great, the story up until the therapist appeared is exceedingly well told but then I felt it went slightly off the boil. The issues with the therapist won’t bother most people, I imagine.
Tina for the TripFiction Team
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