A naked woman in red high-heeled shoes is perched on the edge of Clifton Suspension Bridge with her back pressed to the safety fence, weeping into a mobile phone. Clinical psychologist Joseph O’Loughlin is only feet away, desperately trying to talk her down. She whispers, ‘you don’t understand,’ and jumps.
Later, Joe has a visitor - the woman’s teenage daughter, a runaway from boarding school. She refuses to believe that her mother would have jumped off the bridge - not only would she not commit suicide, she is terrified of heights.
Joe wants to believe her, but what would drive a woman to such a desperate act? Whose voice? What evil?
Shatter, Michael Robotham
SHATTER is the much anticipated 4th book in an ongoing series by this author. All of these books are strong psychological thrillers, with good plots peopled with some believable characters. Each book switches the central protagonist around an expanding character group - sometimes with the others playing bit parts. In SHATTER Clinical Psychologist and Parkinson's sufferer Joe O'Loughlin returns to take the focus, with DI Ruiz taking a supporting (and supportive) role.
As the book gets started Joe is working part-time as a lecturer - the Parkinson's is starting to affect how he can lead his life and it's an ever-present "character" in everything he does. When called to the bridge he's profoundly startled by the sight of a naked woman perched on the edge of a bridge and he's profoundly distressed when he can't stop her from jumping. Everyone is convinced this act - for all it's bizarre characteristics - has been a suicide, but when her daughter - Darcy - gets in touch with Joe she is able to convince him that not only would her mother not suicide, she wouldn't do it in that manner. And there's the question of the mobile phone - who was she talking so frantically to.
Joe's therefore not that surprised when yet another naked woman is found dead in bizarre circumstances, but it takes that death to finally convince DI Veronica Cray that there's something very very weird going on.
One of the great strengths of Robotham's writing is that he can take the reader along the ride of what is a pretty intricate plot - the weird deaths, a strange lurking presence on the end of a telephone call, Joe and his Parkinson's, amongst other things whilst not losing sight of the characters that are central to these plots. The victims have a personality, the killer is allowed to be more than just an "evil presence", Joe's personal life, his own daughters, and his wife Julianne intertwine with his investigation and retired Detective Inspector Vincent Ruiz.
Even at points when the reader could get cocky and think that the obvious is about to happen, there's a twist - just a little twist but enough to keep you reading and wondering. Robotham obviously has great skill as a story-teller. The book takes a very disconcerting subject matter, an unusual and quite sobering twist on the standard murder scenario and it makes it seem not only feasible but frighteningly so. But at the same time he can generate a feeling of sympathy for so many of the players in this story that could have / maybe should have / had they done something - then none of this needed to happen - and that applies not just to the victims and the perpetrator.
Shatter, Michael Robotham (review by Helen Lloyd)
Psychologist Joseph O’Loughlin is called to the Clifton Suspension Bridge where a woman, naked except for her red high heels, is poised to jump. As she weeps into a mobile phone, he tries to talk her down. She turns to him, whispers ‘you don’t understand’ and jumps.
A few days later, the woman’s teenage daughter, Darcy, turns up on Joe’s doorstep. She refuses to believe her mother could have committed suicide, and certainly not by jumping off a bridge. Joe starts to believe that the woman was coerced into jumping by the person on the other end of the mobile phone. The police don’t want to treat it as anything other than suicide until another woman dies in similar circumstances.
Joe and his family have moved from London to Bristol, in the hope that a less hectic lifestyle will be better for his Parkinson’s, which is now having a significant impact on his life, and he has taken a part-time teaching job at the University. When Joe’s guilt at being unable to save the woman leads him to become more involved in the case, it begins to affect his family, particularly his wife with whom his relationship becomes increasingly strained.
As the true nature of the crimes is revealed, Joe realises that they are dealing with a different kind of psychopath. This murderer doesn’t just want to kill, he wants to humiliate his victim, to completely destroy her mind first. At one point he tells Joe of the “moment when all hope disappears, all pride is gone, all expectations, all faith, all desire: I own that moment. It’s mine. And that’s when I hear the sound. … The sound of a mind breaking.”
There’s a terrific cast of supporting characters, including Joe’s friend, retired DI Vincent Ruiz, and straight-talking DI Veronica Cray, a woman who definitely deserves a bigger role in a future book.
The crimes are chilling, but Robotham’s storytelling is compelling. As psychological thrillers go this is one of the very best. Make sure you have plenty of time when you start to read this book because you won’t be able to put it down.
Michael Robotham, previously a journalist and ghost writer of numerous autobiographies of the rich and famous, lives in Sydney. Shatter is the fourth in this loose series, in which each book takes a minor character from the previous book as the main character. The previous titles are The Suspect, Lost (aka The Drowning Man) and The Night Ferry.
Shatter, Michael Robotham (review by sally906)
Opening Sentence: "... It's eleven o'clock in the morning, mid-October, and outside it's raining so hard that cows are floating down rivers and birds are resting on their bloated bodies....."
There have been lots of reviews done on this book already - so I am not sure that I am going to be able to give any deep and meaningful new insight into whatever has been said.
Joseph O'Loughlin (Joe) is a psychologist who is convinced that the recent suicide of a woman, Christine Wheeler, is actually murder as she was listening intently on a mobile phone before she jumped.. Her daughter is also convinced that if her mother had wanted to commit suicide she would not have done it by jumping off a bridge as she was terrified of heights. The police seem to be disinclined to believe that a person could be murdered without the murderer laying a hand on her.
Then a second woman commits suicide - Christine's business partner.
Blood and guts are kept to a minimum in this thriller - it is all in the mind - and the mind can be a scary place to be. Joe's job is to fix broken minds - the murderer has learnt how to break minds. As the story unfolds Robotham cleverly switches to the murderer's point of view occasionally giving the reader an insight into what he is up to . As the investigation continues the reader learns more about the murderer, who he is, what his background is and why he is doing what he is doing. The only thing they don't know is where he is and who his next victim is going to be.
Joe has Parkinson's disease, a wife who supports his desire to continue his life as normally as possible and two daughters. While he is sucked into the dark mind of the serial killer he is trying to stop - he has to deal with personal problems, both real and perceived, within his own marriage. Joe is one of those rare fiction characters where the author has created such a 'real' person, that it allowed me to think I could really pick up the phone and call him to invite him and the family over for a BBQ.
This book recently won the Ned Kelly award for the 2008 best crime novel of the year - I say it is well deserved - anyone who can write such a dark and mentally terrifying novel and get me, the cozy queen, to give it an 'A' has to know what they are doing. I just wish I could stop jumping every time the phone rings.....