Yzabel / April 12, 2015

Crash & Burn by Lisa Gardner

My rating: [rating=3]

Blurb:

My name is Nicky Frank. Except, most likely, it isn’t.

Nicole Frank shouldn’t have been able to survive the car accident, much less crawl up the steep ravine. Not in the dark, not in the rain, not with her injuries. But one thought allows her to defy the odds and flag down help: Vero.

I’m looking for a little girl. I have to save her. Except, most likely, she doesn’t exist.

Sergeant Wyatt Foster is frustrated when even the search dogs can’t find any trace of the mysterious missing child. Until Nicky’s husband, Thomas, arrives with a host of shattering revelations: Nicole Frank suffers from a rare brain injury and the police shouldn’t trust anything she says.

My husband claims he’ll do anything to save me. Except, most likely, he can’t.

Who is Nicky Frank, and what happened the night her car sailed off the road? Was it a random accident or something more sinister given the woman’s lack of family and no close friends? The deeper Wyatt digs, the more concerned he becomes. Because it turns out, in the past few months, Nicky has suffered from more than one close accident. . . . In fact, it would appear someone very much wants her dead.

This is my life. Except, most likely, it’s not. Now watch me crash and burn…

Review:

(I got a copy through NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review.)

I didn’t know this author nor this series before reading Crash and Burn, so this was a discovery on all sides from me.

I’m not sure exactly how the novel ties into the “Tessa Leoni” books, though, as it seems Tessa plays a minor role, compared to the plot as a whole, so this is one thing I found a little unsettling (usually I’d expect the character to be central investigator?)—all the more because of the hints now and then to what she had done in the past and how it may come back to haunt her. On the other hand, having read the previous stories doesn’t seem to be a requirement here, as you can easily follow the main plot without that. In other words: not a problem for someone who doesn’t know the series, but it may be frustrating for someone expecting a “Tessa Leoni” book.

There are a lots of twists and turns in this novel, some a tad bit predictable, some others much less so. The inclusion of Nicky as very unreliable narrator, due to her brain injuries and the way she perceives reality, makes it difficult to know exactly where the story is going, and while this was frustrating at times, it also proved enjoyable, as I kept thinking “well, what do you know, I bet you’re up for a surprise”. Most of the time, I was, even though in retrospect the “holes” actually made sense, and made me feel like I should’ve seen them coming.

This book also deals with several dark themes, among which the “dollhouse”, what lengths someone is able to go to for the person they love—as twisted as these lengths may be—or, on the contrary, what acts a person is ready to commit for money. Those themes were somewhat uncomfortable, but still fascinating in their own morbid ways.

However, I did find it a little difficult to get into the story, because of some narrative lengths when it came to the “Vero” parts. I’m not sure all the “Vero wants to fly” and other similar sentences did a lot to deepen the mystery, and at the same time, they became redundant and annoying at times.

I’d give this book 3.5 stars. I wouldn’t mind reading more by this author later.