HIDE YOUR EYES by Alison Gaylin
New York Rule #1: Don’t get involved.
Samantha Leiffer already has a self-centered, self-help guru for a mother, a cadre of off-kilter Greenwich village pals, and an ex-boyfriend that cheated on her with both sexes. She doesn’t need any more grief. But when she accidentally spies two people dumping a dubious-looking ice chest into the Hudson River, she has an unsettling feeling about its contents…
New York Rule #2: Don’t make eye contact.
But despite her better judgement and the advice of her friends, Sam sets out to unravel the mystery - and soon finds herself stalked by a sinister, shadowy figure who’s wearing-one-of-a-kind mirrored contact lenses…
New York Rule #3: If you must break rules #1 and #2, get some help from New York’s Finest.
Now aided by a hard as nails homicide detective, Sam is poking into some dark and unsavory corners of the city - and finding out more than she ever wanted to know…
New York Rules #4 and #5: Don’t Expect anything to be what it seems…and when necessary, fight like hell.
Why this book:
I honestly don’t remember why I bought this. I’m sure it was in my new mystery / suspense / thriller author glomming phase from a couple of years ago. I closed my eyes and grabbed it randomly from my shelf and read a few chapters on the 1st. I read the bulk on the 2nd and finished the last few chapters on the 3rd.
Five things I liked about this book:
#1 - I love NYC set books when the author knows the city and you can tell it in the writing.
#2 - The characters are truly characters. Eccentric and offbeat, without being caricatures.
#3 - The first person voice is great. Snappy and sharp and smart. I liked being in Samantha’s head. She made me laugh, and I felt like I knew her.
#4 - The twists and turns in the plot. True surprises. Flipping what I thought I knew about a character, and me never seeing it coming. Keeping me guessing. Good job.
#5 - The weaving in of the heroine’s backstory was brilliantly done. I was totally intrigued.
One thing I did not like about this book:
Finding out it’s the first in a series since I’m on a buying hiatus, argh! Oh, and a choice the heroine made at the end of the book that made me want to smack her.
A Funny Thing . . .
I just read an article on this author the other night. I had never heard of her before and I was going thru a magazine a friend of mine gave me (she's a reader too).
I might have to see if I can find this. Will probably start at the library. This sounds pretty much up my alley. Is the smack you want to give her a minor issue or a major one?
Amanda
If a man's home is his castle . . . HE can learn to clean it!
DFW Plus - Come see what we are reading!
The smack. Hmm. I'll go
The smack. Hmm. I'll go with minor because with just a tweak, a phone call before the move she made, the outcome would've been the same. If the whole plot had turned on that one point of what I felt was stupidity, then I would've been seriously irked.