The Woman In the Fifth – Douglas Kennedy
If you’ve ever seen From Dusk Till Dawn and loved it, then you are going to love this book. Of course, it will probably only have that fantastic effect of complete surprise the first time you read it, but once you have finished you will keep thinking back and smiling. And no, before you ask, it has nothing to do with vampires…
Harry Ricks has fallen on some difficult times. Actually, difficult is probably an understatement – he has experiencd so much bad luck and been the victim of some seriously conniving and narrow-minded people that it is little wonder he runs away to Paris to try and escape from the misery of a life back in the US. Unfortunately for the story, Harry was a bit ‘wet’ for my liking. Perhaps it is more an indication of my own personality, but if he had been treated so unspeakably badly by his wife and her clandestine boyfriend, why on earth would he still try to be nice to her?! Paris, however, introduces a new life – with a job as night watchman for a mysterious business, a life in a less than salubrious part of the city, and a strange Hungarian beauty who comes into his life but keeps him at rigid arms length.
However, soon, Harry discovers that bad things start to happen to the people who have wronged him. And as the pace of the story picks up, it starts to become evident as to where that bad is emanating from. But the perpetrator is not all that they seem and Harry is finally caught in a situation which solves all of his subconscious desires but finds him more trapped than ever.
I really enjoyed the twist to this story. It is the first Douglas Kennedy book I have read and I thought his storyline was great. I have read a lot of pretty negative reviews about this book, but it appears that that is because it is a departure from Kennedy’s normal style. Being my first, I had nothing to compare it to and no preconceptions or expectations. Of that I am glad, because I really gained a lot out of this book. I would have been sad to have missed that pleasure because I had expected it to be like something else.
Rating: 7/10
ISBN: 978-0-09-179959-5
Publisher: Hutchinson
Year: 2007
Date Finished: 24 December 2007
