Review: The Suspect

The Suspect by Michael Robotham
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

I was going to give this 3 stars, but I think that's just being far too generous.

The blurb starts by saying our protagonist, Joseph O'Loughlin, seems to have the perfect life. Then a body turns up and everything starts to get complicated.

The book is divided into three parts, and the first part is boooooorrrrring. It talks about the 'perfect life' and is incredibly dull. I mean, the body turns up pretty much straight away but then we hear all about Joe's daily routine and his perfect wife and perfect child. Over and over and over ...

But of course everything is complicated so Joe also has a bit of an illness to contend with, and he's so freaking mopey about it. I get that it's a sucky thing but if you're not gonna talk to people about it then you don't get to mope about it. What. A. Drainer.

So yeah, first half is dull and Joe is an unlikable protagonist.

The second part amps up the action a bit, though, as we start to learn more about the crime and chase suspects and try to figure out what the heck is going on. This hooked me a little more, because I love the psychological stuff and this is where it started getting tangled.

Part three is the climax and conclusion and it was so mehhhh. I was underwhelmed and kinda saw it coming without even knowing what IT was. (view spoiler)[IE I knew DJ was suss, and I knew there'd be a reveal of someone unexpected involved in the murder. Usually it turns out this person is actually the murderer, but in this case it was a second person when I didn't even know we were looking for an accomplice. (hide spoiler)]

So most of my complaints are with the main character, and how the story unfolds. I straight up didn't like Joe one bit because he's a liar and doesn't help the detective at all, making him seem overall like a pretty dodgy, conceited fellow. (view spoiler)[Wasn't thrilled with his cheating, either. What a douche. (hide spoiler)] Plus did I mention he whines a lot? He makes himself out to be such a victim and he does stupid things and it made me SO FRUSTRATED.

The story drags through the first half and then actually gets interesting in the second part. But the third part is a disappointing conclusion that doesn't actually cover most of the important stuff and is more about Joe being hard done by than any actual exploration of our killer and why they did what they did. (view spoiler)[For example, I kept waiting for the explanation of how the killer convinced Catherine to stab herself, and why. It never came. (hide spoiler)] It felt like such a crappy conclusion (view spoiler)[there was no real twist, and no psychological explanations to make up for it. (hide spoiler)] and none of the characters really made me feel anything, even when we discovered why the killer did their killing. It was all surface stories and emotions and I just never got attached because it was too distant and bland. I finished it last night and I've already forgotten how it actually ends. That's how uninteresting it was.

I'm hoping the second one in the series gets a bit more exciting and does more mind-meddling than this one. I probably wouldn't even bother with the second book if I didn't already own it.

Not great as far as psych thrillers go but there's probably people who will like Joe more than I did and therefore appreciate this a bit more.

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