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Five-year-old Matthew Farraday is abducted and, despite massive publicity, the police appear to have no genuine leads as to his whereabouts. Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist who has to take on a colleague's client when it appears he is as much in need of assistance as those he is trying to help. Whilst trying to head off a complaint from Alan Dekker, who was distinctly unimpressed when his chosen therapist didn't appear to have listened to a word he'd said, Frieda only ends up making matters worse when details emerge in her sessions that put her in mind of the little boy's abduction and she feels the need to take her suspicions to the police. Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson doesn't take Frieda's concerns seriously. He's unconvinced by the relevance of Dekker's dreams of wanting a child, even though the child Dekker describes bears an uncanny resemblance to Matthew Farraday. In Karlsson's view, dreams aren't a proper basis for a police investigation. When a possible link appears with the abduction of another child, twenty years before, he evinces more interest but is still a long way from being convinced. However, Frieda is determined to change his mind. She is certain Matthew is still alive and can be found, if only they are able to look in the right place. There's something immediately gripping in the story of an abducted child and this book delivers two for the price of one. These narrative threads are undoubtedly what held me to the book despite my mounting irritation with Frieda Klein as a main character and her increasing tendency to drive a coach and horses through any notions of client confidentiality. Harassed policeman, Malcolm Karlsson was less annoying and more convincingly drawn. Of the supporting cast, Polish builder, Josef, was probably one of the most interesting and his entrance into Frieda's life through a hole in her ceiling was certainly unusual. The premise on which the plot turns hovers dangerously close to cliché and the denouement, whilst initially chilling, was rapidly eclipsed by irritation. I found the conclusion of BLUE MONDAY unsatisfactory in its easy acceptance of something that really should have been questioned more closely by anyone in possession of the facts, as the main characters were by then. With only a small amount of pulling at the threads, this is a book that for me rapidly came undone. And if the authors are intending to return to these characters and this style of story-telling, in a further seven books, as the publicity suggestions, I hope that they will soon get a better grip on their frequent and jarring changes in character point of view, often on the same page with no intervening scene breaks. After a while, this became too noticeable to ignore. § Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.
Reviewed by Linda Wilson, June 2011
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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