Home » Arts & Design

Killing Me Softly - Book Review

Ranked #22,516 in Arts & Design, #548,457 overall

Killing Me Softly - Nicci French

If I'd picked this book up without knowing the author, I'd probably have binned it after about fifty pages. However I've read and enjoyed Nicci French before and know that "she" (actually "they") can produce compulsive stories.

So I decided to give French the benefit of the doubt and stick with the book.

Big mistake.

 
Image: Killing Me Softly

Synopsis

Killing Me Softly starts with an interesting prologue. The trouble with prologues is that they are often tacked on as an afterthought in order to keep the reader turning the pages. That seems to be the case here. The prologue is the most interesting section of the book - and has almost nothing to do with the story.

Killing Me Softly revolves around Alice, a happy, confident career woman in a stable relationship. Then one day she meets Adam and boom. It's love and lust at first sight.

OK, that I can believe but... Alice sees Adam once in passing in the morning. Then she sees him again in passing later that day and immediately goes back to his place for sex. In a very short period of time she has chucked her previous partner and ends up marrying Adam, a man who seems merely to be using her in a blatantly manipulative way.

Criticism

Alice is meant to be a woman who is in a happy long-term relationship, not someone desperate for companionship. We are given nothing to make us suspect that she is dissatisfied with her current relationship, nothing to make us suspect that she is this impulsive, no justification for her sudden change from confident woman to submissive mouse. Quite simply Alice's actions are not believable. Perhaps if the relationship had built up over time it would work - but that would make an already padded novel even longer. If this book had been published under a male name the phrase "sexist male wish fulfilment" would spring to mind.

In fact the whole thing was so outlandish that for ages I assumed it was some sort of fantasy. Was this Alice's imagination running wild? Did Adam have some secret hold on her? Was Adam actually her boyfriend and they were playing some sort of sex games? Nope. None of the above. It's all real, the entire far-fetched and unbelievable story is meant to be literal truth.

What we're promised by the cover blurb is a brooding sense of menace that grows throughout the book. In fact what we get is a growing sense of irritation at Alice and her stupidity. The menace only emerges a few chapters from the end and is then dealt with quickly and without any satisfaction for the reader.

Conclusion

Presumably Killing Me Softly is intended as a darkly erotic psychological thriller based around passionate obsession. A cynic would call it an attempt to cash in by crossing both the crime and chick lit genres. Whatever the intent, it doesn't work. The end result is a soggy and unbelievable romance with a promise of darkness that is never fulfilled.

Don't judge the French partnership on the basis of what I hope is a one-off aberration. If you're looking for a really good read I can recommend the superb "Beneath the Skin".

Just avoid this embarrassing mess.

Nicci French Books to Buy on Amazon

Loading

Rating

I rate Killing Me Softly:

star

How about you?

Loading poll. Please Wait...

Have Your Say

Thanks for reading, if you've enjoyed this review please take a second to rate it using the stars at the top of the page. Feel free to leave any comments or suggestions below. Or make your own page and show me how it should be done!

submit
Show All

by

trevorm

Hi, I'm Trevor and I live in Edinburgh - the capital of Scotland. I'm interested in a wide variety of things and love learning. I intend to write a similarly... more »

Feeling creative? Create a Lens!

Explore related pages

Related Tags