Killing Me Softly... (Killing Me Softly - Nicci French)

Member Name: Pink Panther

Product:	Killing Me Softly - Nicci French
Date:	20/08/01 (1646 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Each to their own, Well written and the plot is gradually unravelled, Nicci French's ability to keep you hooked

Disadvantages: Some people may think it's predicatable, Sexual nature is abit rough

...I doubt there is any such thing or at least there isn’t in relation to this book.

My mum had read this and knowing my tastes, she recommended it to me thinking I might like it (or it would at least shut me up for a few hours) so trusting her taste-like you do, I decided to give it a go.

I’m always ready and willing to pounce on a book that looks like its got more spice than an Indian Restaurant and more dark twisting paths than a back street in Brixton (Brixton = Hell with fluro lighting) so Killing Me Softly joined my list of ‘to do’ things.

Well as it was so kindly pointed out to me by another Dooyoo member that the individual Nicci French does not actually exist I thought I had better update this op and enlighten you all on, who exactly the author is. Sean French and Nicci Gerrard are apparently a husband & wife team who work together on their nail biting thrillers, although they write and produce their novels under the single name of Nicci French (I guess they think two heads are better than one).So now that that's out of the way onto the story line. In July 1999 the double jointed team of Sean French and Nicci Gerrard otherwise known as (Team Nicci French) ‘gave birth’ to Killing Me Softly, an engrossingly gripping psychological thriller, based on one mans’ deeply disturbed past and not to mention his deepening hunger for Alice.

(And no you crazy folk….not Alice in Wonder Land, if your looking for the Cheshire Cat you’ve taken a wrong turn)

So...Alice Loudon is a highly respectable and socially established woman in her 30’s, who appears to have it made. She’s currently in a happy-go-lucky relationship with kind hearted Jake, she is a social butterfly within her cosy group of pals, so perfect and clingy it makes the programme Friends look like their rehearsing for a part on Jerry Springer...and of course her highly paid job within a London based
pharmaceutical company (gag-perfect little miss thang, isn’t she)

So Alice has her comfortable little life all under wraps (pah-so she thinks) until one morning on her way to work, she locks eyes with a mesmerising stranger, who sends tingles of excitement and electricity through her body and keeps her on a high all day long. Alice leaves work that night to find this mysterious man awaiting her...

Without a word spoken nor a name exchanged, the pair whisk off to his apartment for a steamy bedroom romp..(under 15’s you can switch off now)

His name is Adam Tallis- a superbly attractive human-being with an appetite for dangers such as mountain climbing, and women. He speaks few words and has a strong and seductive manner with a shameful secret that he wants kept in the past.

Alice soon finds herself out of breath and hypnotised by Adam’s allure and soon leaves her organised life with her friends, family and Jake for a passionate experience with this man she knows little about.

Life with Adam is a rush and he keeps many things to himself including his past which he does not allow Alice to pry into. They end up married and Alice soon becomes the victim of threatening letters, phone calls and strange happenings.

Alice is determined to find out the truth behind Adam’s silenced background and she takes the situation into her own hands and does some investigating of her own. Unfortunately the details she stumbles on provide her with a daunting insight into her newly come husband and an even more terrifying look at what she is due to encounter herself.

The final punch-line is gradually unravelled and Sean and Nicci's ability to deliver such an outstanding ending is a clever attribute on it’s own.

I loved this novel, and lucky for mum it did shut me up for more than a few hours, basically once I started reading I was in my own little world. However not everyone is going t
o like it, but it is worth a try if your up for some eye-opening events of obsession and to take a look at a women’s avid life turned upside down by a sordid steamy affair.

Other books by Nicci French are:

The Memory Game
The Safe House
Beneath the Skin
The Red Room

Summary: