Not sure

Last Sunday I finished Faye Kellermans Hangman. I’m not really sure about this book. The cover states ‘For all fans of Kathy Reichs’. Alright, I’ve read Kathy (and also have some books of her I still have to read). But I think this ‘compliment’ did not do justice to the books Kathy writes. Furthermore, The Mirror should have labelled this book as ‘Sensational’.  Why?

Well, Hangman is a nice book. It has some pace and some interesting plot twitches. The funny thing however, is that the story on the back speaks of ‘sociopathic husband Chris Donatti’. To me he wasn’t so sociopathic at all. I’ve read stories of much more disturbed people (remember mr. Pudd from the Charlie Parker series by John Connolly). And Chris is a very minor character in the book. Not that very active, more on the background. The main character is LAPD Lieutenant Peter Decker, also called The Loo, or Rabbi, as he is Jewish. Him being Jewish is by the way a very minor factor in the story.

What happens? A young friend – Teresa McLaughlin – contacts Deckers. She is afraid of her husband – the sociopathic Chris – and only want to meet him if Decker is present. Decker agrees. They all meet, very civilized and Teresa is satisfied she can live on her own. Decker then gets involved in a homicide and does not think about Teresa and Chris again, until their son Gabe calls that his mother is missing. Then the two stories start to entwine. The murdered nurse is found near the place where Chris as a kid is thought to have murdered someone. So the search for the murderer, Chris and Teresa begins. Chris does not really want to be found and sort of communicates with Decker through Gabe. Teresa doesn’t want to be found at all. In the beginning they think she is dead, but Decker becomes more and more sceptical.

The search for the murderer of the nurse is actually more interesting than the search for Teresa. She liked to party and fool around. Her boyfriend isn’t exactly faithful. Her friends hides information. In the end of course all comes together. And that is the funny twist of the story. The most important witness – the man who found our nurse hanging in the construction side – has his own secrets to hide. He is a serial killer who liked to suffocated his victims. He had however nothing to do with the death of our nurse, that was her serial killing boyfriend (which she did not know). So you have one serial killer as a witness for another serial killer. The chances for that are of course very slim.

In the end Teresa is also kind of found. She escaped her sociopathic husband and fled to India to live with her new beau. What made her run and leave her kid behind? She was pregnant and not by her husband.

So all is well in the end. But did this make this an sensational book creating ‘a claustrophobic atmosphere against a background of seediness, violence and distrust’ (Sunday Telegraph)? No, not for me. I know taste can differ, but these qualifications do not fit the book I’ve read. It was a good read, but to say it was sensational. It did not keep me awake at night, nor was one of those book you cannot stop reading. It was just nice. And that is not entirely what Kellerman had in mind, I think. So all in all it is a pleasant read, but not a keeper.