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 Second Crucifixion

‘The Second Crucifixion’ is the title of the last chapter of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins’s magnum opus Freedom at Midnight . The sub-heading is: ‘New Delhi, 30 January 1948’. Seventy-three years ago, on that day, a great soul was shot dead by a man who was driven by the darkness of hatred. Gandhi has just completed his usual prayer session. He had recited a prayer from the Gita: For certain is death for the born and certain is birth for the dead; Therefore over the inevitable Thou shalt not grieve . At that time Narayan Apte and Vishnu Karkare were moving to Retiring Room Number 6 at the Old Delhi railway station. They walked like thieves not wishing to be noticed by anyone. The early morning’s winter fog of Delhi gave them the required wrap. They found Nathuram Godse already awake in the retiring room. The three of them sat together and finalised the plot against Gand

Vultures and Religion

When vultures become extinct, why should a religion face a threat? “When the vultures died off, they stopped eating the bodies of Zoroastrians…” I was amused as I went on reading the book The Final Farewell by Minakshi Dewan. The book is about how the dead are dealt with by people of different religious persuasions. Dead people are quite useless, unless you love euphemism. Or, as they say, dead people tell no tales. In the end, we are all just stories made by people like the religious woman who wrote the epitaph for her atheist husband: “Here lies an atheist, all dressed up and no place to go.” Zoroastrianism is a religion which converts death into a sordid tale by throwing the corpses of its believers to vultures. Death makes one impure, according to that religion. Well, I always thought, and still do, that life makes one impure. I have the support of Lord Buddha on that. Life is dukkha , said the Enlightened. That is, suffering, dissatisfaction and unease. Death is liberation

The Final Farewell

Book Review “ Death ends life, not a relationship ,” as Mitch Albom put it. That is why, we have so many rituals associated with death. Minakshi Dewan’s book, The Final Farewell [HarperCollins, 2023], is a well-researched book about those rituals. The book starts with an elaborate description of the Sikh rituals associated with death and cremation, before moving on to Islam, Zoroastrianism, Christianity, and finally Hinduism. After that, it’s all about the various traditions and related details of Hindu final rites. A few chapters are dedicated to the problems of widows in India, gender discrimination in the last rites, and the problem of unclaimed dead bodies. There is a chapter titled ‘Grieving Widows in Hindi Cinema’ too. Death and its rituals form an unusual theme for a book. Frankly, I don’t find the topic stimulating in any way. Obviously, I didn’t buy this book. It came to me as quite many other books do – for reasons of their own. I read the book finally, having shelv

Hate Politics

Illustration by Copilot Hatred is what dominates the social media in India. It has been going on for many years now. A lot of violence is perpetrated by the ruling party’s own men. One of the most recent instances of venom spewed out by none other than Mithun Chakraborty would shake any sensible person. But the right wing of India is celebrating it. Seventy-four-year-old Chakraborty threatened to chop the people of a particular minority community into pieces. The Home Minister Amit Shah was sitting on the stage with a smile when the threat was issued openly. A few days back, a video clip showing a right-winger denying food to a Muslim woman because she refused to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’ dominated the social media. What kind of charity is it that is founded on hatred? If you go through the social media for a while, you will be astounded by the surfeit of hatred there. Why do a people who form the vast majority of a country hate a small minority so much? Hatred usually comes from some

Tomichan Matheikal's blog

Search This Blog