Krishna
Another nice book from the master of thrillers of yesteryear. We have reviewed a few other books earlier of Sydney, including but not limited to Morning Noon and Night, Rage of Angels, and Master of the Game.
Ashley Patterson feels someone is following her. Her father is a mean but famous heart surgeon who ruined her chance of happiness with her first love, a football hero of her school who adored her and wanted to marry her.
She is afraid of a stalker and also has sleazy Dennis Trible harassing her for a date. Toni Abbot is a British born colleague of Ashley. They both work in a Computer Graphics company. Mike is her sympathetic boss. After many years she goes to a school reunion where a friend tells her that James was killed one day after her father angrily rejected his plea for her hand and goes to pieces. So he did not stand her up when they wanted to elope.
Meanwhile an Italian girl Alette who seems to be manic depressive finds a nice man who is also interested in arts. The creepy man who bothered Ashley was found murdered as well, the same as her childood boyfriend. The link in both incidents? Ashley had confided in her wealthy but controlling father.
When Ashley, Toni and Annette go to a computer convention in Quebec city, Ashley is relieved to know that the Christmas dinner with her father is not to be; Annette wants to just spend time in the museum thinking of her artist friend in California and Toni gets to meet the jeweller friend of hers who is falling in love with her. When he is also murdered, we get confused.
Ashley is suspected in all murders but she passes a polygraph with flying colours so the police have no clues at all. When Annette’s boyfriend, Toni’s boyfriend and also the police who came to protect Ashley because she found threatening but unexplained changes in the house (A lipstick message, a cigarette butt though she does not smoke) are all brutally murdered in the same way, the mystery ‘deepens’. (Not really.)
The clues abound and right around half the book, you get to know what you always suspected. This is not the final twist so I will blurt it out here : Ashley, Toni and Annette are the same person. (Now think of the title).
The scene switches now to David Singer, who is in line for a partnership at a prestigious civil law firm. When Dr Patterson, who saved David’s mother’s life when he was penniless young aspiring law student requests that he, David, help Ashley who is in trouble, he finds it hard to refuse.
Under hypnosis, David meets all three identities. Ashley herself, and her alter egos Toni and Alette. He is astounded. He is forced into taking the case by the insistence of Dr Patterson.
His friend Jesse gives him an office, research tools and his wife joins as the paralegal that she was before marriage.
The trial starts and the prosecuting attorney seems to tear David’s case to shreds and even the judge seems unsympathetic totally. David even offers to resign but the judge will not hear of it. He feels totally trapped, unable to help Ashley and seeing financial ruin and career destruction for himself.
When the jury seems to decide that Ashley is guilty, all seems lost but David makes one last ditch attempt to hypnotize Ashley. What he brings to the Judge’s view is astounding. Unbelievable how he turned the tables may be, but interesting it sure is.
The psychiatrist who tries to cure Ashley is both frustrated by lack of progress and also finds himself attracted to her. (In real life he would have been taken off the case instantly but in the story he is simply told to ‘watch it’).
Finally, the end plot unravels. Why is Ashley in this situation? The fact that she was molested by a relative who turned out to be a pedophile (as discovered later) is truly a red herring. When told in the background, the story makes sense. Mind you: I said makes sense and did not say it is logical. This is a highly fictionalized, almost Hollywood like narration of cause and effect but Sydney Sheldon’s aim is to entertain, not inform. In that he does succeed.
The ending is sort of sloppy and the twist at the very end is also weak by Sheldon’s standards. Overall, it is a good entertainer, not in the same class as his Rage of the Angels or Master of the Game but still good.
7/10
– – Krishna (Feb 2019)