Too laboured and lacking in suspense to be anything other than a mediocre read..
I was a huge fan of Sam Blake’s debut novel, Little Bones, but have found her output ever since rather underwhelming and whilst Remember My Name is basically a solid crime novel, it requires a real stretch of the imagination to classify it as a thriller. Cressida Howard has spent more than half her life with husband, Laurence, who started out in his family hotel business and has since gone on to make millions as founder and CEO of Ferryman (a one-stop platform for lifestyle choices). Despite having previously suspected him of infidelity it is only when she overhears his end of the conversation with a woman called Nina that she hires cyber security whizz, Brioni O’Brien, to gather hard evidence to ensure she gets her fair share in a divorce. The synopsis makes clear that Laurence is up to a whole lot more than simple infidelity and is involved with some dangerous people and underhand tactics including blackmailing his co-founder’s into voting in favour of a tie up with a disreputable American mobile operator.
Brioni has barely digested the blackmail revelation let alone gathered evidence of infidelity when Laurence is hit by a series of personal attacks targeting both the women close to him and the Ferryman share price. Brioni’s Met detective brother-in-law has the (unlikely) ability to access the information of the investigating Gardaí and helpfully relay the findings. The narrative is largely split between the perspectives of Brioni and Cressida with occasional interludes from Cressida’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Emily-Jane, whose brief appearances hint tantalisingly at a feisty crusader on a mission of her own. Whilst Brioni has an abundance of personality, Cressida’s is negligible and this did nothing to encourage me to care about her fate. If she had shown a fraction of the spunk of the all too briefly glimpsed Emily-Jane then I suspect I would have been far more invested in the outcome.
The book covers nearly four hundred pages and within fifty pages it is established that Laurence lacks any sort of loyalty and is willing to do almost anything in his pursuit of wealth. The reader bears witness to the blackmail attempt and knowing this made quite a lot of what the two women unravel pretty obvious from very early on with Sam Blake joining all of the dots for readers instead of trusting them with the obvious and self-explanatory (which almost all of the reveals are). I’m no detective but found the lack of smoke and mirrors made what was going on fairly transparent from the off. There is also a great deal of filler material as well as extraneous details on the character of Brioni which slows the pace and I found the book too laboured, over-long and wildly far-fetched to be anything other than a mediocre read.
Brioni has barely digested the blackmail revelation let alone gathered evidence of infidelity when Laurence is hit by a series of personal attacks targeting both the women close to him and the Ferryman share price. Brioni’s Met detective brother-in-law has the (unlikely) ability to access the information of the investigating Gardaí and helpfully relay the findings. The narrative is largely split between the perspectives of Brioni and Cressida with occasional interludes from Cressida’s seventeen-year-old daughter, Emily-Jane, whose brief appearances hint tantalisingly at a feisty crusader on a mission of her own. Whilst Brioni has an abundance of personality, Cressida’s is negligible and this did nothing to encourage me to care about her fate. If she had shown a fraction of the spunk of the all too briefly glimpsed Emily-Jane then I suspect I would have been far more invested in the outcome.
The book covers nearly four hundred pages and within fifty pages it is established that Laurence lacks any sort of loyalty and is willing to do almost anything in his pursuit of wealth. The reader bears witness to the blackmail attempt and knowing this made quite a lot of what the two women unravel pretty obvious from very early on with Sam Blake joining all of the dots for readers instead of trusting them with the obvious and self-explanatory (which almost all of the reveals are). I’m no detective but found the lack of smoke and mirrors made what was going on fairly transparent from the off. There is also a great deal of filler material as well as extraneous details on the character of Brioni which slows the pace and I found the book too laboured, over-long and wildly far-fetched to be anything other than a mediocre read.