Chris Bohjalian rarely disappoints, and this novel is one of
his most gripping. I am amazed at how
prolific he is and how each of his novels is totally different from the
last. In this one, Richard Chapman
agrees to host, in his beautiful home, a bachelor party for his despicable younger
brother. Even more despicable is his
brother’s friend Spencer, who uses a shady source to hire two strippers for the
party. The strippers are actually prostitutes,
accompanied by two large, scary-looking men, who are basically the strippers’
captors. When one of the women, who may
actually be underage, slits the throat of one of the captors, the men at the
party are in shock. Moments later, shots
are fired, both captors are dead, and the strippers have disappeared
lickety-split into the night. There’s no
hiding this disaster from Richard’s wife and young daughter, as their home
becomes a crime scene—trashed and covered in blood. From here, the plot branches into two
storylines—Richard’s and Alexandra’s.
Alexandra is one of the strippers, who was taken from her Armenian home as
a young teenager and groomed for prostitution.
Richard’s story is pretty much as you’d expect, as he struggles to
repair his marriage, hold on to his job, and regain his self-respect. Plus, despite the fact that he never actually
had sex with either girl, the disgusting Spencer is blackmailing him with an
incriminating video. The storyline,
particularly Richard’s, proceeds at a breakneck pace, and I was insanely
curious about how he would ultimately fare in all this. He is not blameless, not only because he got
naked with a woman other than his wife, but also in that he should have known
what to expect from his brother’s friends, given his brother’s own
shortcomings. Hindsight is 20/20, as
they say, and Richard is deeply remorseful, wishing he could turn back the
clock. I hate when authors foreshadow
the outcome, and Bohjalian gives a very broad hint that I could have done
without. Other than that, this thriller
delivers.
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