Mystery/Thriller -- 3 1/2 stars
Ava is living in Paris. Her estranged twin, Zelda, is home in the U.S. running the failing family vineyard and taking care of their alcoholic mother who is also suffering from a form of dementia. When Ava gets a message that Zelda has died in a fire, she heads home. Then the messages from a (maybe) not so dead Zelda begin to arrive. An original story idea that doesn't completely work because of the basic implausibility of the way the clues are delivered. (How does Zelda know exactly when Ava will drive into town? How does she know when Ava will search her mother's room for prescription bottles--or even if she'll find them at all? What if someone else had found Zelda's phone? And what happens if Ava finds a clue out of order?) The scavenger hunt is interesting--a clue for every letter in the alphabet--but the story is so bogged down by unhappy past relationships and too many disfunctional characters that it ends up being a bit of a muddle.
No comments:
Post a Comment