Shatter

Shatter by Michael Robotham

Winner of Australia's Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel, Robotham's compelling fourth thriller (after The Night Ferry) finds clinical psychologist Joe O'Loughlin and his family in Somerset, where he teaches part-time at the University of Bath. When Joe fails to persuade a suicidal woman not to leap from a bridge to her death, he becomes obsessed with understanding the woman's motives. The woman's grief-stricken teenage daughter tracks down Joe, but the police don't take notice until another woman ends up dead under suspicious circumstances. Joe calls on an old friend, retired London detective inspector Vincent Ruiz, and together they race to catch a killer who uses psychological techniques Joe recognizes from his own practice to destroy people. Robotham smoothly mixes Joe's investigation and personal struggles with glimpses into the killer's mind. Even the sharpest readers may not anticipate all of the plot's agile switchbacks or foresee the chilling climax.

--Shatter by Michael Robotham, Copyright ©2009 by Michael Robotham, published by Doubleday

My Review

It is four years after the events chronicled in Suspect (Robotham's first novel). Professor Joe O’Loughlin, his wife Julianne and their two children, Charlie and Emma, are now living in Somerset. Their lives are good and everyone’s happy…until a woman jumps off a bridge. Suddenly, Joe is pulled into a twisted game controlled by a devious mastermind who only wants the truth and will use any and all means at his disposal to get it.

This individual brings a new level of definition to the term “mind-f**k.” Seriously.

He’s an army interrogator, whose mind has broken at the loss of his wife and daughter. They died in a ferry accident, but their bodies were never recovered. Desperate to find out if they truly died or might still be alive, he uses his vast array of skills to seek revenge against his wife’s friends, whom he believes have betrayed him. The skill with which he taps into their minds and finds that one thing that could break them, and then leads them straight to, and then over, that breaking point is both fascinating and horrifying.

Joe is drawn into his intricate web even though he knows that doing so will further damage his already rocky marriage to Julianne. Their seemingly happy marriage is plagued by hints of infidelity and Joe’s involvement in the investigation not only impacts his marriage, but draws his wife and oldest daughter into the killer’s dangerous game. Can Joe find out who the killer is and put an end to his mind games before he loses Julieanne and Charlie?

I give this story FOUR STARS. A fantastic story. This is Michael Robotham's fourth novel to date. I missed his third, The Night Ferry but will remedy that sometime this summer.

Lost

Lost by Michael Robotham

Det. Insp. Vincent Ruiz (a supporting character in Robotham's debut, Suspect) is hauled out of the Thames with a bullet wound in his leg and no memory of a shooting, let alone how he wound up in the water in Robotham's fine, moody second thriller. Keebal, a nasty cop from internal affairs, hounds Ruiz from the start, and everyone seems to know something Ruiz doesn't. When psychologist Joe O'Loughlin (the protagonist of Suspect) shows Ruiz a picture of young Mickey Carlyle—a seven-year-old girl kidnapped three years earlier whom everyone but Ruiz thinks is dead—he figures there must be some connection between her case and his shooting. Despite his injuries, Ruiz retraces this investigation with the help of his partner, a young Sikh woman named Ali. The past returns in dribs and drabs and none too gently. Mickey is the daughter of a Russian-born crime lord, Aleksei Kuznet; a cache of diamonds and a man known as a "grooming paedophile" also figure prominently in the splintered plot. The warm relationship between Ruiz and Joe, who suffers from Parkinson's, counterpoints the main story line's grit. Robotham works some good wrinkles into Ruiz's relationship with Ali and an empathetic nurse, too. The result is a thoughtful and subtle thriller, with convincing, three-dimensional characters..

--Lost by Michael Robotham, Published Vintage (May 8, 2007). Audio book produced by Recorded Books.


My Review:

I listened to Michael Robotham’s first book, Suspect before I started this blog so there is no review of it here, but I enjoyed the book so much I had to get hold of his second and third books, Lost and Shattered. I hoped Lost would be as good as Suspect and I was not disappointed.

The story starts strong, if a bit slow, as Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz is pulled from the Thames with a bullet hole in his leg. He awakens eight days later with no memory as to how he ended up in the river or what happened to the diamonds he was supposed to be delivering as part of a ransom for a girl who had been kidnapped three years earlier. The story drags as Vincent keeps slipping onto the past--the case’s past and his own memories of his younger brother--but once Vincent does recover his memory, the pace picks up speed and we’re off on a frenetic roller coaster ride. Vincent begins to put together the bits and pieces of the case, developing theories that involve an exploration of the London sewers and culminates in a flight to the countryside outside Moscow.

This is Michael Robotham’s second novel and it is as good as his first. His third novel, The Night Ferry as well as his fourth, Shattered are on my list and I’ll be giving them a listen very soon.

I give this story FOUR STARS.