Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The perfect contemporary bogeyman story, November 3, 2006
John Katzenbach is arguably the master of the psychological thriller. There is plenty of objective evidence for that proposition: his novels have garnered two prestigious literary awards, not to mention a couple of Edgar nominations and a passel of movie adaptations. Each one of his works has been informed with an intellectual, learned voice while being grounded in a plausible, real-world foundation. The same --- and more --- can be said of THE WRONG MAN, Katzenbach's newest and best novel.
There are a number of factors that contribute to making THE WRONG MAN Katzenbach's most readable and accessible work to date, perfect in nearly every way. The plot is strong, riveting and terrifying, given its up close and personal manifestation of romantic obsession. 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.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"We were meant for each other.", October 8, 2006
John Katzenbach's "The Wrong Man" features a particularly nasty villain named Michael O'Connell. After having a one-night stand with lovely art student Ashley Freeman, O'Connell begins to stalk her relentlessly. When she tries to reason with him, he merely smirks and tells her that eventually she will understand that they are destined to be together. Ashley would prefer not to involve her family in her problems, but eventually her father Scott, a college history professor, and her mother, Sally, a lawyer, find out that Ashley is in serious trouble. They, along with Hope, Sally's lover, decide to put their heads together to come up with a plan to deal with O'Connell.
However, far from being a garden-variety stalker, O'Connell has some unique skills at his disposal. First, he is an expert computer hacker who uses his considerable ability to invade and disrupt the lives of people he despises. In addition, he seems to have little need of money, since instead of working, he spends many hours keeping tabs on Ashley. O'Connell is a sadist who arranges convenient "accidents" to punish people who, he fears, might be getting too close to Ashley. In fact, he is a master criminal who uses his brilliant mind to commit felonies without leaving behind any forensic evidence. Will Ashley ever regain the freedom to live her life without fear? Will she have to look over her shoulder indefinitely? After much soul searching, Ashley's parents come up with a way to fight back against this vicious individual who has robbed a vulnerable young woman of her innocence and peace of mind.
"The Wrong Man" had the potential to be a suspenseful and psychologically engaging thriller and it does have some genuinely chilling moments. However, at over four hundred and fifty pages, it is a bit too long and repetitious. O'Connell is a one-dimensional psychopath who is almost too bad to be true. In addition, Katzenbach uses a clumsy device that disrupts the narrative's flow. Throughout the book, the author inserts a series of intense conversations between an unknown woman and an unnamed writer. The woman, who is obviously an insider, for some reason feels the need to give a detailed account of the conflict between O'Connell and the Freemans to a total stranger. Instead of illuminating the story, however, these passages feel artificial and intrusive. In addition, the long-awaited conclusion is convoluted and unrealistic. If it had been more carefully constructed and edited, "The Wrong Man" could have been a more effective novel about the extremes to which ordinary people might be driven when seeking justice in an unjust world.
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7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well Written Literary Suspense Novel, but it Takes a Strange Turn , November 1, 2006
THE WRONG MAN is the first novel I've read by John Katzenbach. I thought it was a very effective thriiller. Katzenbach is plainly a very skilled writer and I thought he did a very good job building the tension. This is a good page-turner, albeit a slightly verbose one.
The plot of THE WRONG MAN concerns a stalker who grows increasingly violent, eventually threatening the family of the young woman he's obsessed with. This admittedly sounds like a very familiar plotline. Indeed, the first 350 pages of this novel are relatively predictable. However, for the last hundred pages, Katzenbach takes this plot into a direction that I did not expect. Eventually, the family hatches a remarkably convulted and unethical plan that I will not reveal here. I personally didn't find this plot development to be particularly credible at all -- I couldn't imagine such a plan working in the real world.
This is also a rather odd novel in that the three main characters are each experiencing a mid-life crisis. Katzenbach devotes a lot of prose to their inner thoughts and emotions -- too much time, in my opinion. I understand that Katzenbach is trying to make a point here about the emptiness of suburban, middle-class life, but this theme has been done to death. I eventually grew rather weary of these characters, who struck me as somewhat humorless and unhappy about their lives.
Overall, though, THE WRONG MAN is a good literary suspense novel. If you like this book, you might want to consider the work of Peter Abrahams and Joy Fielding, who write in a similar style.
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