If you can’t trust yourself, who can you
trust?
Cass is having a hard time since the night
she saw the car in the woods, on the winding rural road, in the middle of a
downpour, with the woman sitting inside - the woman who was killed. She’s been
trying to put the crime out of her mind; what could she have done, really? It’s
a dangerous road to be on in the middle of a storm. Her husband would be
furious if he knew she’d broken her promise not to take that shortcut home. And
she probably would only have been hurt herself if she’d stopped.
But since then, she’s been forgetting
every little thing: where she left the car, if she took her pills, the alarm
code, why she ordered a pram when she doesn’t have a baby.
The only thing she can’t forget is that
woman, the woman she might have saved, and the terrible nagging guilt. Or the
silent calls she’s receiving, or the feeling that someone’s watching her…
Author: B.A. Paris is from a Franco/Irish
background and was born in 1958. She was brought up in England and moved to
France when she was 21. She spent some years working as a trader in an
international bank before re-training as a teacher and setting up a language
school with her husband. They still live in France and have five daughters. Her
first novel “Behind Closed Doors” was published in 2016 and became a tremendous
bestseller.
My thoughts: After I finished “The Breakdown” I immediately purchased her first
novel “Behind Closed Doors” - I had enjoyed reading this psychological thriller
so much. I am pleased to say that I have also enjoyed reading “Behind Closed
Doors”, which I will review in due course.
I ordered The Breakdown in mid-March in
the original English version. As soon as I received it from Payot bookstore in
Geneva, I started reading it and I finished all 415 pages that same weekend.
This book was a real great surprise: I knew it to be good, but I wasn’t
expecting it to be extraordinary, which it certainly turned out to be.
To summarise it, without giving away too
much of the plot, it’s the story of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s the story of a split-second decision taken by Cass, the main character,
which has such a devastating impact on her life.
It relates the consequences of her decision
not to stop to help that motorist she came across in an isolated place in the
woods, not far from her cottage, that Friday night at eleven thirty.
Gradually, Cass learns that she knew Jane
Walters, the victim who was brutally murdered. Cass had made her acquaintance
just a few weeks before and they had begun a good friendship. That shakes Cass. Her previously peaceful and happy life, a
life without drama at the side of her loving husband (they have been married
for a year) and in the company her childhood friend, Rachel, who is like a
sister to her, is turned upside down. Cass starts undergo many things that have
suddenly caught up with her and throw her off-balance.
Cass starts to have memory lapses and she
feels the threat of dementia hanging over her: ten years before her mother died,
she was diagnosed with dementia and Cass fears it is hereditary.
I will stop here and tell you that if you
like very well written psychological thrillers and a well developed and
consistent story, without descending into clichés and improbable plot twists,
you will love this book.
