Book 46: "Stalking Fiona" by Nigel Williams

[kittiwake]

There, alone in the quiet house, I picked up the first page of Paul's letter to me. I wanted to read it like a love letter but of course I didn't. I read it like a detective, looking for clues and traps.I read it like a critic, trying to understand the hidden meaning of each sentence, and why each word had been chosen. Because this is a story about how things look, about how a tone of voice or a trick of style can betray you and, most importantly, how words on a page can lie as easily and cruelly as the false lover in whose arms you may have fallen peacefully asleep.

After Fiona McMillan has been attacked twice by a masked man, she discovers a clue that tells her that it must be one of the three men she works with. When she receives a package containing several versions of the events, including an anonymous account by her attacker, she is sure that he intends to kill her and is determined to unmask him before that can happen, but it doesn't help that everyone seems to be lying, hiding things or at any rate being inconsistent and getting their dates mixed up.

I liked Fiona's decision not to be a victim, despite being terrified and obeying her attacker's order to tell no-one about the first attack, but I wasn't sure about the ending, which was a little abrupt and quite ambiguous (although that's not always a bad thing).