I See You

Book Review

“I see you. But you don’t see me.” The villain of Clare Mackintosh’s novel, I See You, says that. This villain is one who sells the profiles of women – fairly attractive ones though he knows that attractiveness is a subjective attribute – to prospective buyers. It is a remunerative online business which gives a profile picture of the woman along with certain details like how she looks, her approximate age and where one can find her usually. Many of the women eventually become victims of assault, rape and even murder. It would appear that there are too many men without anything much to do except stalk women.

The story is narrated partly by Zoe Walker [first person narrative] who is shocked to see her photo in a newspaper advertisement which merely mentions a website and a phone number. Soon Zoe discovers that she is one of the many women whose profiles are available online to potential clients. The other half of the story is narrated by Kelly Swift, a police officer [third person narrative]. Kelly’s twin sister was herself a rape victim which motivates her to take Zoe Walker’s fears seriously enough.

The novel is a psychological thriller. It manages to keep the suspense alive and interesting enough till the end. It is set in London, a city with underground railway with its regular commuters who have fairly consistent travel habits. The commuters are people with smartphones which keep them too busy to notice anything around. Stalkers have an easy job in such an ambience.

The setting is credible and even the characters. But the plot is tenuous. While one can understand a criminal exploiting the commercial potential of providing profiles to stalkers, it is a little difficult to accept that too many men are stalkers. Once we can suspend our disbelief in that regard, the plot becomes acceptable enough. Yet the novel has little more to offer than a superficial suspense thriller.

The author was a police officer and part of the CID for some time. That has helped her create credible characters. But not an appealing plot though there are some interesting twists in the end. I wonder why this book made it to the best seller list.

Comments

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below. Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Ram, Anandhi, and Co

Book Review Title: Ram C/o Anandhi Author: Akhil P Dharmajan Translator: Haritha C K Publisher: HarperCollins India, 2025 Pages: 303 T he author tells us in his prefatory note that “this (is) a cinematic novel.” Don’t read it as literary work but imagine it as a movie. That is exactly how this novel feels like: an action-packed thriller. The story revolves around Ram, a young man who lands in Chennai for joining a diploma course in film making, and Anandhi, receptionist of Ram’s college. Then there are their friends: Vetri and his half-sister Reshma, and Malli who is a transgender. An old woman, who is called Paatti (grandmother) by everyone and is the owner of the house where three of the characters live, has an enviably thrilling role in the plot. In one of the first chapters, Ram and Anandhi lock horns over a trifle. That leads to some farcical action which agitates Paatti’s bees which in turn fly around stinging everyone. Malli, the aruvani (transgender), s...

The Blind Lady’s Descendants

Book Review Title: The Blind Lady’s Descendants Author: Anees Salim Publisher: Penguin India 2015 Pages: 301 Price: Rs 399 A metaphorical blindness is part of most people’s lives. We fail to see many things and hence live partial lives. We make our lives as well as those of others miserable with our blindness. Anees Salim’s novel which won the Raymond & Crossword award for fiction in 2014 explores the role played by blindness in the lives of a few individuals most of whom belong to the family of Hamsa and Asma. The couple are not on talking terms for “eighteen years,” according to the mother. When Amar, the youngest son and narrator of the novel, points out that he is only sixteen, Asma reduces it to fifteen and then to ten years when Amar refers to the child that was born a few years after him though it did not survive. Dark humour spills out of every page of the book. For example: How reckless Akmal was! ...

A Curious Case of Food

From CNN whose headline is: Holy cow! India is the world's largest beef exporter The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon is perhaps the only novel I’ve read in which food plays a significant, though not central, role, particularly in deepening the reader’s understanding of Christopher Boone’s character. Christopher, the protagonist, is a 15-year-old autistic boy. [For my earlier posts on the novel, click here .] First of all, food is a symbol of order and control in the novel. Christopher’s relationship with food is governed by strict rules and routines. He likes certain foods and detests a few others. “I do not like yellow things or brown things and I do not eat yellow or brown things,” he tells us innocently. He has made up some of these likes and dislikes in order to bring some sort of order and predictability in a world that is very confusing for him. The boy’s food preferences are tied to his emotional state. If he is served a breakfast o...

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog