Until It's Over |
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Nicci French
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Pages: 384 (Hardcover)
ISBN: 0718147847
Pub: Michael Joseph Ltd
Pub date: 2008-03-06
Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 2336
Editorial Review:
What a pleasure it is to be in the capable hands of the husband-and-wife duo who jointly write as Nicci French. Their new book, Until It's Over, is a salutary reminder just how accomplished Nicci Gerrard and Sean French are at turning out sophisticated and disturbing psychological thrillers.
The protagonist of the new book is a young and very fit London cycle courier Astrid Bell, who suddenly seems to be bad news for those around her. When her neighbour Peggy Farrell inadvertently knocks Astrid from her bike, Peggy is subsequently found in an alley, savagely beaten to death. Astrid is assigned to collect a package from a well-heeled women by the name of Ingrid de Soto -- but when she arrives, Astrid discovers her in the hallway of her home, also murdered. Needless to say, the police -- not great believers in coincidence -- begin to take a very close interest in Astrid, and soon life for her and her housemates begins to turn very unpleasant, with internecine squabbling (and a burgeoning apprehension about who is to die next) poisoning once friendly relationships.
The slow and inexorable breakdown in the natural order of things is meat and drink to Nicci French, and the lengthening list of strongly written crime novels has acquired another winner with Until It's Over. It's particularly commendable that French resolutely avoids the temptation to write about a series detective. Powerful stand-alone narratives with ordinary people at the centre are the hallmarks of a Nicci French novel -- long may they remain so. --Barry Forshaw
Reader Reviews:
Read it all nearly in one sitting, Until it was over!! (0/0 people found this helpful)
I found this book reminiscent of Secret Smile by the style of writing and the suspense (try that one you will like it). More of a psychological tale than a crime novel but I think that adds to the book and makes it more of a page turner. This writing couple keep you just in the 'room' with the characters with a small amount of knowledge being drip fed about every member of this chaotic household!
The first part of the novel is told by Astrid who, it would seem, is the catalyst for people she has had the minimum contact with being murdered.
The Second, called er..... part two, is from another angle and cleverely weaves the same tale - but from the eyes and thoughts of the murderer.
The only part that dissapointed me (there is always a downside in my reviews) is the fact that Miles offers the tennants money. I have never heard of any landlord being expected to hand over cash. In this tale it would seem that it added nothing at all to the content and should have been wiped before the final draft.
A satisfactory story with a good, rounded conclusion.
A brave experiment that falls somewhat flat (2/2 people found this helpful)
After their last book 'Losing You' was written in "real time" - covering a woman's search for her missing daughter over a period of about six hours, which is roughly how long it took to read - Nicci Gerrard and Sean French have tried another new approach in their latest novel 'Until It's Over'. This time the book is split into two parts: the first, slightly longer part follows a young cycle courier named Astrid and her six housemates as they find themselves caught up in a series of murders. The second part of the book follows the same basic storyline from the point of view of the killer, explaining how and (partly) why the killings took place. It's a risky move to reveal the identity of the guilty party with over 150 pages left to go, but the authors manage to keep the story going pretty well. I felt my interest waning as I started the second part of the book, but a clever twist revitalises the story and kept me turning the pages.
Anyone who shared a house as a student will definitely recognise the noisy chaos of 72 Maitland Road, where Astrid and the other characters live. Nicci French captures the atmosphere well; I actually felt quite a pang of nostalgia for my student days reading about life in the house (without the murders, obviously...). However, I never got a real sense of who the characters were. They seemed as if they could be summed up by one or two particular traits: Miles is weak, Pippa is promiscuous, Mick is silent, Dario is a stoner, and so on. Even Astrid, who is the narrator for the first part of the book, never really came across as a particularly well-defined character - I never felt like I knew any of them.
Also, the murders seemed almost incidental to the story at times. There's not much of the usual finding of clues, building of suspicions and planting of red herrings that we've come to expect from a Nicci French thriller. A lot of the book is taken up with the housemates arguing over their impending eviction, then every once in a while a body pops up and the police arrive. It just didn't build up gradually into a tense mystery the way I hoped. The dynamics of a shared house are captured well, and the second half of the book was actually better than I expected - although, despite it being told from the killer's point of view, we are never presented with any truly convincing explanation of what turned the guilty person into a psychopath. It just felt a little unsatisfying.
This is still a very readable book, and I think Nicci French fans will get some pleasure from it, but I must admit I was a little disappointed. We never really get to know the characters, which makes it hard to care about them, and we never get much of an explanation as to what's behind the killer's damaged psyche. As a thriller, there's no denying it leaves something to be desired.
No one writes thrillers like Nicci French - brilliant! (3/3 people found this helpful)
Nicci French's novels are unusual in that they are not only extremely clever, psychologically astute thrillers, but they are also strong, atmospheric stories about contemporary women's lives. This one is about Astrid, a bicycle courier in London, who starts to worry when she realises someone is deliberately killing people she knows - either to scare her or to implicate her, she thinks. Like French's other novels, this one feels horribly, chillingly plausible - you can actually imagine it happening to you, or someone you know. The structure of this book, without wanting to give anything away, is very clever and surprising - almost a little shocking, even, but it certainly works. The best thing about French's novels, though, is that the voice and atmosphere are absolutely unique and recognisable as 'Nicci French World', and linger in your mind long after you've finished reading. French's crime novels also have a refreshingly humane feel to them - the writer(s), one senses, have a real faith in human nature, so that the books are always uplifting, despite the murders they contain. The villains aren't frothing-at-the-mouth psychos, they're flawed, damaged people that it's hard not to identify with to a certain extent, whatever they've done. Last but not least, this novel, like French's entire oeuvre, is absolutely gripping and impossible to put down, and leaves you desperately keen to get your hands on the next one.
Far too long (1/8 people found this helpful)
I was a little bit disapponted by Nicci French's earlier novel "Losing you" for cutting it short.In this case,however,the story was much too long.I enjoyed the way they portray people,but this one turned boring before the end,and I really had to skip a couple of pages.It's a pity that it is so hard to keep the same quality of writing if you have to produce books on regular basis,it seems.
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