A young woman named Ashley Freeman momentarily becomes involved with Michael O'Connell, a violent mass of contradictory loose ends and crossed wires who at the same time is possessed with a canny and savage intelligence. Ashley attempts to terminate the relationship, which O'Connell will not tolerate; he continues to pursue Ashley, both literally and figuratively.
Ashley's parents, divorced for several years and still struggling with the issues that ended their own relationship, mean well but are woefully ill-prepared to assist their daughter when she comes to them for help. Scott Freeman is a college professor whose street smarts do not extend much farther than the walls of his classroom. Sally Freeman-Richards is an attorney toiling at the low end of a divorce and real estate practice that requires little heavy physical or intellectual lifting other than by rote. Sally's relationship with Hope Frazier, her life partner, is fraying around the edges for reasons that neither woman is able to articulate or prevent. Sally's reliance on the rules and order of law is of little use when dealing with O'Connell, who uses and skirts the system with impunity. As Scott, Sally and Hope come together uneasily to develop and execute an effective plan to deal with the situation, they slowly begin to realize that the conventional order of their respective lives will not provide them with a solution.
The beauty of THE WRONG MAN, however, is not the implementation of their plan, or even how well or badly it works. While those factors would have been enough to create an engrossing story, what ultimately drives this tale at lightning speed from page to page is the quiet but electrifying interplay among the characters as they slowly work toward a common goal. As their individual and occasionally secretive plans threaten to inadvertently subvert it, O'Connell's coldly brilliant actions play havoc on each of their lives.
This is the perfect contemporary bogeyman story. People like O'Connell exist; as I write this, the news wires are reporting that a popular 19-year-old film and music starlet is taking action against a man whose behavior, as described, sounds uncannily like O'Connell's. THE WRONG MAN may be fiction, but it is all too real.
From the Amazon.com Editorial Reviews :
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestseller Katzenbach (The Traveler) manages the impressive feat of taking a thriller cliché and using it as the basis for a powerful and complex story. The one-night stand that Ashley Freeman, a Boston art history grad student, has with Michael O'Connell, a determined psychopath, leads to dire consequences. O'Connell quickly moves to obsessively control every aspect of Ashley's life, coupling a relentless will with ingenuity and computer skills that soon ensnare Ashley's loved ones as they seek to protect her from him. When their feeble attempts to buy or scare off O'Connell fail, Ashley's divorced parents, as well as her mother's lesbian partner, embark on a convoluted but ingenious plot of their own. The author deftly shifts perspective among his central characters, raising this page-turner above the run-of-the-mill by making all of them emotionally credible. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
Ashley's parents, divorced for several years and still struggling with the issues that ended their own relationship, mean well but are woefully ill-prepared to assist their daughter when she comes to them for help. Scott Freeman is a college professor whose street smarts do not extend much farther than the walls of his classroom. Sally Freeman-Richards is an attorney toiling at the low end of a divorce and real estate practice that requires little heavy physical or intellectual lifting other than by rote. Sally's relationship with Hope Frazier, her life partner, is fraying around the edges for reasons that neither woman is able to articulate or prevent. Sally's reliance on the rules and order of law is of little use when dealing with O'Connell, who uses and skirts the system with impunity. As Scott, Sally and Hope come together uneasily to develop and execute an effective plan to deal with the situation, they slowly begin to realize that the conventional order of their respective lives will not provide them with a solution.
The beauty of THE WRONG MAN, however, is not the implementation of their plan, or even how well or badly it works. While those factors would have been enough to create an engrossing story, what ultimately drives this tale at lightning speed from page to page is the quiet but electrifying interplay among the characters as they slowly work toward a common goal. As their individual and occasionally secretive plans threaten to inadvertently subvert it, O'Connell's coldly brilliant actions play havoc on each of their lives.
This is the perfect contemporary bogeyman story. People like O'Connell exist; as I write this, the news wires are reporting that a popular 19-year-old film and music starlet is taking action against a man whose behavior, as described, sounds uncannily like O'Connell's. THE WRONG MAN may be fiction, but it is all too real.
From the Amazon.com Editorial Reviews :
From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. Bestseller Katzenbach (The Traveler) manages the impressive feat of taking a thriller cliché and using it as the basis for a powerful and complex story. The one-night stand that Ashley Freeman, a Boston art history grad student, has with Michael O'Connell, a determined psychopath, leads to dire consequences. O'Connell quickly moves to obsessively control every aspect of Ashley's life, coupling a relentless will with ingenuity and computer skills that soon ensnare Ashley's loved ones as they seek to protect her from him. When their feeble attempts to buy or scare off O'Connell fail, Ashley's divorced parents, as well as her mother's lesbian partner, embark on a convoluted but ingenious plot of their own. The author deftly shifts perspective among his central characters, raising this page-turner above the run-of-the-mill by making all of them emotionally credible. (Sept.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.
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