Broken by John Rector

Genre: Suspense/Thriller

Publication: Thomas & Mercer, 15 September 2020

Trust becomes a fatal mistake in this shocking thriller by the international bestselling author of The Ridge.

Welcome to Beaumont Cove, a slowly decaying tourist town at the edge of the world, and the place where Maggie James’s worst fears for her estranged twin sister, Lilly, have come true.

Lilly is dead, and Maggie has arrived to identify her body.

Lilly’s husband, Mike, is in custody for her murder. With his long history of abuse, no one in town is surprised at the inevitable end to their stormy marriage, least of all Maggie. All she wants is to clean up her sister’s affairs, see Mike punished, and get out of Beaumont Cove.

With the help of the local sheriff, a retired private investigator, and a strange but friendly carnival psychic, Maggie begins to uncover the truth about what really happened to her sister. But the truth comes at a price, and soon Maggie finds herself walking a dark path toward the same deadly trap that killed Lilly.

The more Maggie discovers about her sister’s final days, the more she realizes that nothing is as it appears in this strange boardwalk town. Blurb from Goodreads

My thoughts

I had mixed feelings about this book. I’d never read anything by John Rector before, but the premise sounded intriguing. Unfortunately, for me, the book fails to live up to the premise.

First Impressions

By a third of the way through the book, I made a long note on my kindle. Here it is, only slightly edited:

So far, nothing here is unusual for this genre. Dead woman, seen in flashbacks. Predator/creepy-stalky guy’s POV. Troubled past for both characters. Abusive husband. Angry sister. Not feeling much emotional attachment to anyone here. I can already see what’s going to happen and has already happened in the murky past. I’ve already figured out the big twist already. Everything else is predictable.
John Rector is an experienced writer–as evidenced by the clean, crisp writing style and list of award-winning titles–so presumably he already knows all the clichés of the suspense genre. Surely he knows what he’s doing here isn’t unusual. So why is an experienced author choosing such predictability in his novel? If he’s making a statement about what the suspense genre has become, that’s fine. Artistic license, all that.
But even a parody still needs to work as a story and I don’t feel like this story has enough depth to work. The characterization is rather shallow. The plot is predictable. Is it a parody of the suspense genre itself? (It’s now standard practice to have a “big twist” and unreliable narrators, for example.) But a parody would need to draw in more of the genre’s wacky elements and push them to an extreme. That’s not happening here. So I have to assume that the book is intended to be serious.
The guy can definitely write. But the story doesn’t feel fully realized as a “fictional dream.” It’s on the shorter side, so there is plenty of room for more depth. But it’s not there.”

Final Impressions

I finished the book, but the rest of it confirmed my early impressions. Something was missing from this story. If you’re an avid reader of suspense novels, the plot won’t hold any real surprises. It’s unfortunate, because a writer of Rector’s skill and experience could’ve produced a truly original story from this premise. But that didn’t happen.

Still, I’m giving this three stars. Why? Because John Rector flat-out knows how to write. He has a terrific way with words, and it’s refreshing to read prose that doesn’t make me wonder where the editor was. He’s good at creating a desolate tone that reflects the desolate nature of this town. I would definitely read another book by him.

Note: I received a complementary copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review. All opinions are my own.

Broken by John Rector