A Novel by Paula Hawkins
Review by Marcianne Miller
I ordinarily don’t take up precious space to complain about books I dislike. I ignored Fifty Shades of Grey, and barely touched Gone Girl a few months ago. But I have to speak up about The Girl on the Train. It’s a debut novel from British writer Paula Hawkins that somehow has gotten rave reviews. I think it’s a case of false advertising hypnotizing the masses. It’s supposed to be a “woman-centric thriller (is that a rare thing?), “Hitchcockian” and the “new” Gone Girl. It’s sold over 8 million copies. I congratulate Ms. Hawkins—and I hope no more women will spend their hard-earned reading dollars on her book.
Train is indeed woman-centric, but thrilling it’s not. Hitchcockian? Well, the main character is a voyeur who watches strangers. It’s not Rear Window (based on mystery writer Cornell Woolrich’s short story), and it’s definitely not Strangers on a Train, the quintessential Hitchcock film, based on the novel by American novelist Patricia Highsmith.
Divorced alcoholic Rachel rides back and forth from the suburbs to London every day, peering into the houses at trackside. She’s become obsessed with a young couple that she imagines to be perfectly happy. One day she is shocked to see a strange man kissing the woman. And then the woman disappears.
The next Gone Girl? Well, there are three women who serve as the novels “unreliable narrators,” and they’re all awful, but we’re not lucky enough that they would be as psychotic as Amy Dunn in Gone Girl. Naw, these gals are just boring and shallow and they all sound alike. I wanted to scream at them, “Get a hobby!” Neither one would recognize a marriage vow if it smacked them in the face.
Rachel, the train rider, has blackouts and no matter how many humiliations she suffers, she can’t quit drinking. She vomits so many times I wanted to kill her. Then there’s Megan, the woman who disappeared–at least she had an interesting past. Anna is the younger woman who stole Rachel’s husband, Tom, and has the baby Rachel wanted. Train finally does stop poking along, in just the way I predicted. If you must read this book, at least get it for free from the library.
If you want murder mysteries that are wonderfully written and have characters of depth, read any of the 28 standalone psychological thrillers by the English writer Ruth Rendell (her 24 police procedurals in the Inspector Wexford series are also excellent), or any of the 28-some novels in the series and standalones by Scottish writer, Val McDermid. Warning: Once you start one of their books, you can’t put it down.
Better, come closer to home with any of the novels written by our terrific local writers, Sallie Bissell (six novels with half-Cherokee investigator Mary Crow) Vicki Lane (five Elizabeth Goodweather Tales of Appalachia ) and Sharyn McCrumb (11 Appalachian “Ballad” novels), as well as Atlanta’s Karin Slaughter who has written several standalone novels as well as three different series.
For guidance and a good time in your mystery reading, join Malaprop’s Mystery Book Club with author Sallie Bissell, which meets at the store on the second Monday of each month at 7 p.m.
The Girl on the Train: A Novel by Paula Hawkins, Riverhead Books 2015, pp. 336