BRING ME BACK (2018)
By B. A. Paris
St. Martin's Press,
304 pages
★★★
Bring Me Back is a
mystery that will keep you engrossed, even when you can't stand the protagonist,
and even though a central reveal comes too early. Overall it's a readable and
clever novel, even when it's not very convincing.
It was gutsy of Ms. Paris to cast Finn McQuaid as her lead,
as he's the kind of jerk you'd avoid in real-life if you had an ounce of
commonsense. Finn is vain, furtive, quick-tempered, and self-centered. He's also
financially set thanks to an old friend, Harry, who helped him get his feet on
the ground after a testosterone-fueled assault by bringing Finn into his high-powered
London investment firm. The book is set between the years 2002 and 2016, which
also tells us that Finn lined his nest during the global recession. As we know,
profit-takers during those years are unlikely candidates for sainthood.
You'd better have a good tale if you want readers to connect
with an egoist such as Finn. It's here that Paris casts her finest spell. Not
much actually happens in Bring Me Back,
but the novel is a bit like the old Alfred Hitchcock film Gaslight in that it sucks us into a psychological whirlpool. It's
also like Hitchcock in that the more you suspend belief, the better you'll
enjoy the spin.
Paris leads with intrigue: A British couple heading home
from a French vacation makes a rest stop. When the male driver returns from the
toilet, his female companion has disappeared without a trace. We soon learn
that the couple is Finn and his girlfriend, Layla Gray. The book goes back and
forth between time and point of view, and we immediately learn that Finn is an
unreliable narrator. He is quite naturally the prime suspect in Layla's
disappearance. Though he's cleared of wrong-doing, he informs us that he told
both French and English authorities the truth, "just not the whole
truth."
We also learn that Finn met Layla in the Underground—he an
upscale Yuppie on his way to a party, and she a Scottish country bumpkin in
London for the first time with no clue that she'd never find a youth hostel bed
on New Year's Eve. Layla ends up staying at the posh flat Finn shares with
Harry and before you can say, "Holy plot device," Finn has dumped his
girlfriend for Layla. Harry is baffled as Layla is everything Finn is not: sweet,
vulnerable, reckless, non-calculating, and naïve is ways that blur the line
between inexperience and mental instability. The last trait surfaces anew when
she and Finn move to a country cottage, but Layla begins to act oddly. She
claims she longs for London because Devon reminds her too much of the Isle of
Lewis, where she grew up. It also makes her miss her sister, Ellen, who stayed
on Lewis to care for their father in his final days, even though he was an
abusive alcoholic lout. But the trip to France was not an engagement trip, as
Finn told police. Was the purpose something more sinister?
Twelve years pass. Layla has been declared legally dead,
Finn now lives a quiet life in the Cotswolds, and he is affianced to Ellen,
Layla's sister. She is Layla's opposite—calm, sophisticated, sensible, demure….
But the very announcement of impending nuptials sets off a string of bizarre
consequences that begin when Ellen receives in the mail the missing piece of a
Russian doll set she lost as a child. Only Layla knew about this. Other Russian
dolls appear, with Finn doing his best to snatch them away before Ellen
discovers them. There are reports of Ellen sightings and Finn begins to get
emails with information that only Layla knew. Is she back? Is this a sick joke?
Why doesn't she show herself? These questions haunt Finn. He becomes more and
more agitated and irrational—which doesn't make him any more likable.
As I suggested earlier, much of Bring Me Back is more or less a crib of Gaslight, with the gender roles reversed. Although I unraveled a
few rather obvious clues early on, I give Paris credit in that I did not
anticipate the mystery's resolution. Nor did I particularly buy it once I
finished the novel and thought about it. But perhaps this is the classic definition
of a good summer read—one that keeps you swirling in the whirlpool until you
cling to a branch, pull yourself out, and discover that the churning water was
only two feet deep.
Thanks to St. Martin's
Press and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this novel.
Rob Weir
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