When the best -selling psychological thriller writer Paula Hawkins (“The Girl On The Train”, 2015) Sae the cover of his debut novel with “A Thelma AND Louise for our times, “your career has had a quick start.
The same goes for the rhythm of the plot of Hannah Deitch’s book, “murderous potential”, which opens to a dizzying clip and really does not slow down about 200 pages. Evie Gordon is our narrator. She went to “a school of liberal arts, stupidly expensive”, and is now working as a SAT tutor in the expensive postal codes of California. His first prayer is a jewel: “Once I was a famous murderer.” The rest of the book reveals how he won that denomination and the adverb “Once”.
The opening scene is found in “The Victor House”, which Evie describes in great detail: its “Living Portuguese wooden edge table”, the “Dam Painted Silk Fund of Gournay” and the “Moroccan tiles of Aquamarine in the bathroom.” It is where Evie discovers the bodies of Dinah and Peter Victor, the mother with the attacked face and the father floating in a koi pond. While Evie runs away, listen to a voice that asks for help and rescues a woman trapped behind a door under a ladder, before facing face to face with her tutoring student, Serena. Thinking that Evie and his accomplice are murderers fleeing the scene of his crime, Serena attacks with a lamp and the scene ends with Evie breaking a vase against Serena’s head before escaping with the mysterious woman in the car of Evie.
Cue the Hans Zimmer soundtrack for the next more than 100 pages when Evie knows his partner in the crime, which at first does not speak at the beginning, traumatized by what happened to him in the house. Finally, we learn their name, Jae, and together they achieve a series of crimes, some petty (robberies, cars), some not (assaulting and shooting some men and children who recognize them from television). Throughout all, Evie’s internal monologue keeps compromised readers while reflecting on things as the language of courtship (pursues. Persports. Stalk.) Reflects the language of hunting. It is clear after a time that Evie and Jae Lujuría on each other and when that dam is finally broken, the novel acquires a torrid tone that feels authentic for two people in the race for weeks depending only on the other and their animal instincts to survive.
Of course, Paula Hawkins does not show his book unless there is a well -gained turn, and the “murderous potential” delivers on that forehead. The final third more or less of the novel is a true joy of reading, since Deitch fills all blank spaces using different narrative techniques. To say something more would spoil the fun, but the “murderous potential” beats Deitch a place in the list of “new novelists to see.”
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