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This book began for me very well. One thing I was impressed by was that Joanne Kilbourn would discover things and the author would assume right away that the reader got it. I've read too many books where five, ten, fifty pages after a blatant clue is noted, suddenly everyone has to either realize or rehash what happened: "oh, but Emily said she wasn't there on Sunday!" when the reader caught it already. Another attraction of this book is that it posed a dilemma, one which I've never had to deal with, but it made me wonder how I would deal with it if it came up in my life. And the dilemma is this: when you see someone you care about making a major mistake, what do you do? In this eighth book in the series, Kilbourn is in a rather awful situation; her close friend Jill is getting married, and Kilbourn distrusts and dislikes the man she has chosen: Evan MacLeish. Jill admits to having horrid taste in men, and yet, seems to repeat patterns. Here, she admits to marring a man because she's worried about being alone as she ages (ugh) and because she's nuts about Evan's 17-year-old daughter Bryn. Evan is a documentary film-maker and his films are unnerving, possibly cruel intrusions into people's lives, including the lives of his former wives, who either died or committed suicide. We soon learn he's been videotaping Bryn from childhood. The book started to go downhill for me and unfortunately, by the end, I could not recall why I started out with such enthusiasm for it. Bryn is horrible; she is a self-centered, lying young woman - but Jill apparently thinks she can "save" her. Again, ugh. Jill's "infatuation" with this messed-up teenager doesn't make any sense. After a number of failed relationships, why can't Jill see that "saving" someone is both a horrible basis for any relationship but a professional one and also, well, it doesn't work. However, it's MacLeish and his wretched family that made me turn so negative about this book. There's a sister, there's the twin sister of his ex-wife, who shows up at the wedding of Jill and Evan wearing her sister's wedding dressähow Gothic. And the more I learn about these people, the less I wanted to know. Joanne Kilbourn's children are still interesting and well-drawn; Joanne herself is still pretty smart and savvy. But I didn't enjoy this story at all. By the end, I was totally creeped out by the people I had spent time with. I'm sorry that Joanne's relationship with Alex had ended; it was understandable, but the moments he appeared, in his professional position as a cop were some of the most interesting. It was just too difficult watching fairly self-destructive people acting badly, stupidly, or well, destructively.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, October 2002
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