Customer Reviews

Until It's Over

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

A group of young people are sharing a large house in London, each with a bedroom of his own and with a shared kitchen/living room. The house is owned by Miles and each of the tenants pays rent and does a certain amount of cleaning and tidying. There's a mixture of personalities sharing this space, both professional and non professional with one of them even working as a bicycle courier. Some tensions DO exist as there is a certain amount of bed hopping but everything proceeds smoothly until the first major incident when the courier is knocked from her bike and on the next day, the motorist who accidently knocked her over is found murdered. From that moment, serious events take place with two more murders, this time accompanied by the ritualistic slashing of the victim. It's a very good, exciting and fast read with lots of psychological twists and turns.

Bike messenger Astrid Bell shares a house with a passel of assorted friends, including an ex-lover, a prospective lover, a dope dealer, and Pippa, who has a new lover most every night. Astrid narrates the first, longer section, and the murderer narrates the second section, so don't skip ahead.

It all starts, or so it seems, when Astrid is accidentally knocked off her bike by a neighbor, a middle-aged woman who doesn't seem to really fit the scruffy neighborhood. The next morning, the woman is found dead in the alley, an apparent robbery victim.

The passing police interest in the housemates intensifies when one of Astrid's customers is also murdered, this time in a gruesome, ritualistic fashion.

Meanwhile the housemate situation is crumbling. The house's owner and his girlfriend - mostly the girlfriend - want everybody out. A certain amount of bickering and acrimony is only natural and there's a third murder and an arrest before they all go their separate ways and the murderer gets to tell his side of the story.

A pseudonym for the husband-and-wife team of Sean French and Nicci Gerard, French does a fine job of psychological suspense and misdirection.

In London Astrid Bell loves her life as a bike messenger and living with six roommates in a dumpy house on Maitland. She especially likes her flatmates who are best buddies to her though she knows each one of their flaws and idiosyncrasies.

Riding her bike on her way home from work, Astrid collides with the car door of a neighbor Margaret Farrell. Her pals assist a somewhat battered Astrid home. Soon after the collision, someone kills Margaret, beating her to death in what the cops believe was an out of control rage. The police question the seven mates, but each has an alibi. Soon a second homicide tied back to Astrid occurs followed by another. The police suspect a stunned Astrid who has no explanation as to why someone would kill for her over minor indiscretions.

The tale is broken into two interrelated segments with the first setting the stage mostly starring Astrid and the second how the acts were performed by the killer. Readers know early on who the serial killer is and why; yet the beauty of Nicci French's talent is that the suspense keeps intensifying until the end. Astrid is a terrific young woman whose life turns upside down from the moment she collides with the car which was unknown at that time to her or her buds. That incident apparently set in motion the murdering spree. Fans will enjoy this engaging thriller wondering UNTIL IT'S OVER what will happen next to a beleaguered Astrid.

Harriet Klausner

Plenty of suspense, but the characters fall a bit flat. I found myself wanting to go back and re-read different portions of the story in attempt to locate little clues I was certain had been dropped.

Astrid Bell finds herself the center of attention concerning three murders and tells part one of the story from her perspective. In part two, a different perspective is given, rehashing much of what already transpired, only adding in the murderer's motives and actions.

A bit predictable and unsatisfying. Not a bad read, but not a book I would care to purchase and have on my shelf at home.

Astrid Bell is a bike messenger in London. Although she cycles throughout the city, it's when she's on her own street that a neighbor coming home from shopping, opens her car door without looking, forcing Astrid to hit the door and injuring herself and her bike.

The woman offers to pay for the damages but Astrid is angry. Her 6 roommates console her but later that night the woman is beaten and murdered.

Astrid tells the police of her accident and with her roommates tries to figure who might have committed the crime. She returns to work and is asked to collect a package from a wealthy woman at her residence and she finds the woman murdered. The police see her as the only connection between the two murder victims but cannot come up with anything else.

A thrid murder takes place and Astrid's roomates again get together to offer ideas on the subject. We find that the roommates are having romantic meetings and pairing off with one another in a manner that would be suitable for Desperate Housewives in a London setting.

Later in the book the point of view changes and we hear the killer's views. A bit confusing and I wished I had a score card to check on which roommate was seeing the other and what each had in their past.

While I enjoyed this book, mixed emotions seems to catergorize not only my opinion of this novel, but the emotional state of the people in the story. I must have enjoyed the novel enough to keep reading it, but I didn't care for the switch in viewpoints which takes place in the novel. At first it is Astrid telling the story, then in the second part it switches over to Davey, and I enjoyed the second part of the book far less than the first part. It was an interesting way of telling a story, but not exactly my cup of tea, as it were. It kept me a little interested, at least enough to finish reading the book, but it was not quite what I was expecting from the rave reviews. A decent read, but nothing to carry on about.

I have read all but one of the Nicci French books. Interesting layout, being in two parts, there are always two sides to every story, right.

Thoroughly enjoyed the read, a real page turner as all of their books are.

I can never understand what possess people to write spoiler reviews. Even worse is when they put the spoiler in the title. Amazon should either take these reviews off or allow the author to remove them. That said, Nicci French is a very good story teller. Not a 5 star effort, but I can comfortably give it 4. Never boring, the characters were interesting and quite well developed, just not enough surprises in the plot to make it terrific. Still I recommend this book if the numbskulls who have reviewed it haven't already spoiled it for you.

I loved the book and though it's clearly not the best even on it's genre, i would definitly recommend it to my friends. If you want to spend some time reading a book with thinking too much but without feeling bored, this is for you.

One of Nicci French's best.