Land of the living door Nicci French

My expectations weren’t very high when I started reading this book. I thought that, after reading four books by the same author, I would become bored by the style and genre the author always uses and that the story would become a bit too predictable because the main character sounded very much like the main characters in her other books (female, successful in business, lots of family and friends, mid thirty).

After having finished the book I was actually quite surprised. This book had really hit me, the whole scary atmosphere had definitely got to me and I found myself being scared walking the street in broad daylight. As you can see in the previous paragraph, my expectations weren’t very high but apparently I underestimated the skills of the author. Although my prediction that the book would look a lot like her other books came true, Nicci French has managed to write another book that gives you goose pocks while reading it.
The fact that the author didn’t grip the opportunity to create a completely different main character did disappoint me; although I knew what to expect, I had this small piece of hope that it for once wouldn’t be the successful woman in her mid thirties who gets kidnapped or threatened by a man. Regretfully, French took the easy road and created a convincing but not surprising collage of all the main characters in her other books and made that person lead this book.

You told us we didn’t have to write a summery so this is going to be VERY BRIEF one: Abigail Devereaux finds herself hooded and bonded in an unknown space where there’s a rude man feeding her and saying that, if she doesn’t do exactly what he tells her to do, is going to kill her, just like the others. She realises that she’s kidnapped and after a while she risks her life and tries to escape, it works and she enters the land of the living again.
The only problem is that she can’t recall anything that happened within two weeks before her kidnapping. This makes her story very unbelievable for the police and they don’t do anything.
Her personal live is also very much disturbed, she hears that in the two weeks she can’t remember she broke up with her boyfriend, left her friends and quitted her successful job. She is desperate and sets of the find out what happened in those two weeks. After having found out what she has done, she finds the place where she was kept kidnapped. She confronts her kidnapper and everything turns out fine; the police believes what happened and she gets back with her friends.

It’s practically impossible to describe three main characters in this book because there is only one, the whole idea is that Abigail Devereaux is on her own and that there’s nobody who believes the story of her kidnapping. That’s why the other characters don’t really matter. Abby Devereaux; she’s a successful businesswoman who works at an office, she’s in a relationship with a men but it doesn’t really work out. She’s got some nice friends but her relation with them is also under a lot of tension. In the weeks before her kidnapping she decides she wants to change her life for ever; she breaks up with her boyfriend, quits her job, fights with her friends and makes new friends (Jo and Ben) and books a trip to Venice, the town she always wanted to go to.
Abby is an extremely strong woman, although no one believes her and she’s al alone, she manages to keep the spirit up and to start searching for her kidnapper. She also isn’t afraid to face her fears and actually attack her kidnapper when she has found him.

Because of the fact that the book is written out of Abbie’s perspective, it’s almost impossible not to identify yourself with her. The book starts when she wakes up and finds herself hooded and almost strangled and you read al her thoughts, which is very scaring. That way you really get to know her and when she has escaped you keep on feeling with her. Even when the book wouldn’t have been written from her perspective I would be able to identify myself with her because of the fact that she’s female and, just like me, has got a bit of this fighter spirit and bites herself stuck in something and doesn’t let go.
Optional questions.
10.
This book became immediately, even in the first sentences, unputdownable for me.
The first chapter is the most scary one and that makes that after you’ve read it, you curiosity forces you to keep on reading. You fall directly in the middle of the story and at first you’ve got no idea what’s happening. After a while you find out that the person whose feelings and thoughts you are reading (thus experiencing) is in the dark, hooded and kidnapped. Obviously, someone in a position like that is scared to death and that is precisely what happens to the reader.
11.
Just like I described in the previous paragraph, the fact that the book was told from Abbies point of view is very important. The story is, although it’s nicely written, at some points not very believable; the idea that a man can kidnap an awfull lot of woman without it even getting noticed and than there is SuperAbbigail who discovers him quite easily, for example isn’t something that would happen in real life.
The only reason why you believe the story whilst reading it, is the fact that you read it through Abbie’s perspective, you read her fears and they are so strong and so deep that you are kind of forced to believe it, you would be a heartless person if you didn’t feel with her and believe her story.
17.
Everyone in the world of literature is all over this book so I would recommend it to you, but only for that reason. Although it’s nicely written, I couldn’t find any difference between this book and ordinary thrillers which aren’t so highly thought of.
Therefore, I don’t really trust people who say this book is the best thing they’ve read in years and who say that this is definitely a piece of High Literature. I think that al the books by Nicci French are perfect excuses to finally read the crappy thrillers you always wanted to read but never did because it wasn’t good for you reputation.
Nobody can deny the power with which these books are written, the power to scare you to death and the power to transfer the spooky atmosphere right in to your veins, but that’s all! So, if you feel like a nice and scary book, you should rush to the shop and buy this one, but if you are looking for a book that will satisfy you in more ways than the usual goose poks you get from thrillers, I think you have to search further…

De teloorgang van mooie vrouwen

Net als de meeste thrillerschrijvers blinkt ook Nicci French niet uit in het bedenken van titels. Onderhuids is weer zo'n nietszeggende. Maar dat is dan ook meteen het enige minpunt aan de vierde roman van het Engelse echtpaar. Want Onderhuids is een prachtboek: vol mededogen, stijlvol, en interessant van vorm. Ondanks het angstwekkende onderwerp, wordt Nicci French nooit expliciet gewelddadig, ze scheert vakkundig langs de gruwel.
[…] De verschillen tussen de vrouwen worden niet alleen duidelijk uit beschrijvingen. Op geraffineerde manier spreken ze ook uit de taal die Nicci French gebruikt.
De eerste vrouw, Zoë, is een slonzig onderwijzeresje. Ze rookt doorlopend en leeft op zwarte koffie. Ze is onzeker en wordt steeds onzekerder door de enge brieven die ze krijgt toegestuurd. Haar 'monologues interieur' zijn geschreven in korte afgehakte zinnetjes, als een nauwkeurige afspiegeling van haar warrige gedachten. De tweede prooi is een dame van stand, een voormalig fotomodel dat nu is getrouwd met een rijke kille man, en met hem drie zoons heeft. Haar gedachten over de buitenwereld worden uitgesproken op de subtiel badinerende toon van de verwende 'upper class'. In Jennifers hoofdstuk zijn vrienden ineens 'vrinden' en wordt een Italiaanse saus een prut. De zinnen zijn lang en omslachtig, met veel bijvoeglijk naamwoorden en typeringen ('Lena is ons kindermeisje schuine streep au pair-gevalletje, snoezig kind om te zien, Zweeds, onacceptabel blond, slank en jeugdig').
Nadia, het derde slachtoffer, vertegenwoordigt het onbezonnen kunstzinnige type. Ze werkt als clown op kinderfeestjes, kan niet met computers overweg en wordt snel verliefd. Bijna valt ze voor de moordenaar, die, zoals wel vaker in het werk van Nicci French, stoer en innemend is. Anders dan in eerdere boeken krijgen we weinig over de dader te horen, blijft een schimmig figuur. Maar dit geeft niets, want het is een boek over vrouwen. Over de angst voor het onbekende, over de eenzaamheid die angst met zich mee brengt. Want toevallig heeft geen van de drie hoofdfiguren een begrijpende partner. Onnadrukkelijk beschrijft Nicci French de teloorgang van de eens zo mooie vrouwen. Hoe ze vermageren, doffe haren krijgen en schaduwvechten met de dreiging daarbuiten. Triomfantelijk is uiteindelijk de ontknoping, om de vindingrijkheid van het slachtoffer en het vernuft van de auteur. Door een paar 'typisch vrouwelijke' denkstappen (die te maken, hebben met schone T-shirts en oog voor woninginrichting) wordt de dader ontmaskerd. Waren Het Veilige Huis én Het Geheugenspel nog onevenwichtig, met het vorig jaar verschenen Bezeten van mij vond Nicci French haar karakteristieke vorm, die in Onderhuids glorieus is uitgewerkt.

NRC Handelsblad, Hester Carvalho 5-5-2000