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“A splendid job...Those who appreciate intelligent writing and emotionally plausible characters will be rewarded.”—Publishers Weekly“Noort cranks up the tension with skill to produce a truly gripping nightmare.” —Sunday TelegraphPraise for Saskia Noort:'A mystery writer of the heart as much as of the mind, a balance that marks her work with a flesh-and-blood humanity.'—Andrew Pyper, author of The Wildfire Season“Affairs, deceit, manipulation, tax dodges and murder—-there’s nothing Noort shies away from stirring into the mix, nicely showing off the sinister side of the suburbs.”—Time Out“While there are echoes of Desperate Housewives here, this is closer to Mary Higgins Clark and is a good bet for her fans.”-—Library JournalMaria has money problems, two children from a failed marriage, and a depressive boyfriend. When she becomes pregnant, she decides not to keep the baby and then the letters start to arrive. Threatening letters, from pro-life activists she thinks at first, but then she begins to suspect others—even her own boyfriend. She flees to her sister’s house, redolent with memories of a childhood she does not want to revisit. As the death threats follow her to her hiding place, Maria begins to fear not only for her life but for her own sanity.This is relentless suspense writing; it is a description of Maria’s hellish descent into a world of induced paranoia that ends with a narrow escape from a carefully planned murder.Saskia Noort, born in 1967, is an acclaimed author of literary thrillers and international bestsellers. She has sold over a million copies of her first three novels and splits her time between the Netherlands and a Spanish island retreat.
Maria Vos is not an overly sympathetic character. She appears to be a self-centered, single mother of two (from two different fathers), bent on self-satisfying experiences. She is a singer, living in Amsterdam, and has just kicked out her latest live-in lover after having an abortion of his child without telling him.She then begins to receive threats from what appears to be an anti-abortion activist and the police inform her that they can do nothing until some harmful act takes place. She becomes more and more frightened and takes the kids and flees to her sister's home, the scene of their childhood during which her mother suffered from mental disease and attempted to kill her father. Maria begins to fear for her own sanity as well as her life. Her home in Amsterdam burns down the night she arrives at her sister's, and the police believe she's at fault.The novel is a suspenseful mystery, with all appearances indicating that Maria may be the culprit. Clues are few and far between, while Maria points the police toward her ex-lover and her missing brother-in-law, who is said to have walked out on the sister two weeks before Maria's arrival. The reader really isn't informed of any developments until the final denouement. Written with a sharp pen, it is an interesting and unusual tale, but seems a bit mechanical in the telling.
