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Title: Impersonation

Author: Tamsin Kate Walker

Genre: Thriller

Rating: 2 Stars

Description/Synopsis: “I caught a glimpse of myself today...I saw my description in the pages of a book, in the words of a man I have never met.”

 

When Ruth receives a new novel from her book club, she is immediately intrigued. ‘The Ruthlessness of One Man’ claims to be about a real-life London commuter and, as Ruth delves further into the dark tale, she makes a sinister discovery.

 

She is that commuter.

 

As Ruth reads on and becomes convinced that the author, Mr Walden, intends her to be more than just his muse, she must unravel the story to uncover just what he has in store for her, both on paper and in reality. Ultimately, she only has the book itself to piece together Mr Walden's identity and motive. But can she do it in time to stop herself from becoming the victim of a twisted literary plot?

 

WARNING - SPOILERS MAY ENSUE BEYOND THIS POINT - REVIEW BELOW

 

I had a very difficult time getting through this book - but perhaps I should explain first. Impersonation is a story about a woman, Ruth Morton (who oddly enough shares my last name!), who one day receives a copy of a book in her mail from a book club and upon reading it, discovers that she is the protagonist. Somewhere in the world a man she doesn't know saw her on a London commuter train and decided to write a book based on her appearance. The problem is, the image he paints of Ruth isn't flattering, and worse still, as she continues to read the story, it starts to take a dark turn. Through the course of the book, we learn that Ruth is being stalked by parties unknown, and this stalker is hell-bent on inserting himself into her life.

 

Now, understand that I am not a great lover of first-person present tense, so getting into this book was already quite difficult for me. I'm a strong advocate for 1st or 3rd person past tense and felt it difficult to connect to the characters through the impersonality of the format. That being said, as I read on, I found it nearly impossible to like or even feel particular sympathy for any of the characters. Their personalities were flat, their actions wholly unbelievable, and there was an almost overwhelming and tragic sense of desperation for each of the characters portrayed.

 

There were a few instances in this book where I literally paused and wrote myself a note about the ridiculousness of the character's actions. For example, at one point Ruth meets a man by the name of James. The portrait we're painted of this man is that he's an older, divorced man working in a dilapidated building that smells of urine. At the time of their meeting, Ruth believes he may actually be her stalker, and even runs away from him. Despite this, by the end of the day she's willing to sleep with him, and ends up pining for him for the rest of the book (despite the fact that he showed little more than superficial interest in her). I couldn't find the appeal or even the attraction in their relationship, and it seemed absurd at the time that she would throw herself into a relationship with this stranger (when she already had a boyfriend at home I might add) amidst her obvious paranoia.

 

At another point, her mother hires a private investigator to follow her own daughter around. Why? Because she doesn't speak to her often enough for her own liking and wants to contrive a way to insert herself into her daughter's life (A theme that continues until the very end of the book). Quite frankly, her mother came off nearly as creepy and disturbing as the stalker. By the end of the story, I was utterly disgusted at this woman's meddling.

 

Another part of this book I had trouble with was the random dropping of crossword puzzle questions all throughout the narrative. The first time I came across it I had no idea what it meant - it was a jumble of words that didn't seem to make any good English sense, followed by a series of numbers. It was not explained and was simply dropped into bits and pieces of the narrative. I was so put off by these odd little additions that I actually deleted and re-downloaded my copy of the book to make sure it wasn't some sort of strange publishing error. Upon finding that it was indeed, intended to be in the book (and it was later hinted that these were crossword references) I simply chose to ignore every instance of italicized text after that point to avoid confusion. Though the back of the book had the answers to the crossword questions and it became obvious (after I'd read the book) that the answers pertained to the story itself, I found their use distracting and needless. The story read fine without the insertions, and there didn't seem to be any clear reason why they were added in the first place. Crosswords were only mentioned twice in the entire book, and only in fleeting mention.

 

All of that aside, the story was interesting, and after attempting to ignore the actions of the main characters and the crossword bits, I was able to appreciate the mystery of the storyline. Watching Ruth being stalked by the mysterious book writer was very much like watching a train wreck in that it held a macabre interest. I wanted to see how the story played out, and quite frankly, I was hoping to see the main character get killed. Not only that, but the characters themselves were so... at odds with the world around them - so muddled in their thoughts and actions that I could only sit back and watch them fall apart from the sidelines.

 

I don't know that I would recommend this book to anyone but the very clever, and the very disturbed (which I'll admit I am) who think it fascinating to watch a series of characters fall apart. I didn't walk away from this book with a positive feeling of where the plot ended, nor towards any of the characters themselves. It's like driving by a car crash.. you just want to peek at the misery and drive away with as little guilt as possible. I left this book with an impression of uneasiness that was not easily shook at the time of this review, nearly 2 hours later.

I've known that E. Phillips Oppenheim was a very popular author during the early years of the 20th century. We had, or used to have, one of his books lying around the house for as long as I can remember. But, I've never read him before. Until now, that is. Although this book didn't capture my fancy all that much, I think it was more the subject matter than the writing and plotting. So, I'll likely try Oppenheim again.

This book has some intriguing ideas, but in the end, I don't think they really make sense. People end up doing things that are so improbable, given their previous histories, that what happens in the book could never happen in real life. I like plot twists, but they must make some vague kind of sense.

So anyway shortly before the beginning of World War I, we have a dissolute English baron, on the verge of starvation and death, wander into the camp of a German baron. They're in East Africa. It turns out the two know each other. They'd gone through public school and Oxford together. They also resemble each other rather amazingly. If you didn't know better, you'd mistake one for the other, at least by looks. Their personalities are sufficiently different, one could tell the one from the other in a twinkling of an eye (to borrow an inapt Biblical expression).

Well, the German baron gets an idea. Why not kill off the English guy and impersonate him back in England? He'll become a sort of under-cover spy for the Kaiser. He knows the Kaiser is up to no good and is arming so as to extend the German empire across much of Europe, with subsequent inroads into the rich trading areas of Asia. So, it would be most helpful for the fatherland to have an embedded presence among the British ruling class. So, he sends the English baron back into the bush with only whiskey in his water bottles. That should kill him off. And if not, the German baron will follow along in a few days to make sure the Englishman will no longer be able to mess up his plot.

So, then we're off in England where this German baron purports to be the English baron. People are much surprised that he's reformed his dissolute ways, but mostly, he's accepted with open arms, in part because he's paying off all his massive debts. His two main problems are the Hungarian princess who used to be his lover (and the cause of his exile to Africa because he'd killed the princess' husband), and the insane wife of the English baron (who was the cause of the English baron's exile in Africa to escape being killed by his insane wife). The returned English Baron/German spy must act honorably toward both, which means keeping his hands of someone else's wife, especially given that she's insane, and also means keeping his hands off his former lover so as not to blow his cover. Something like that.

Anyway, I won't go on. There are some surprise plot twists that I wouldn't want to spoil. As I said above, it's an intriguing and well written tale, but falls a bit flat at the end because of it's improbability.

I think The Almost Truth is a great book for times when nothing but a light-hearted book will do. We all know those days when we want to read but our minds just won't focus on anything that requires us to think all too much for ourselves. Not to knock The Almost Truth for being light-hearted; it's just that the roadmap of a plot was extremely clear for a book that reads like a mystery. I easily predicted almost every turn in events, such that what should have been plot twists hardly surprised me.

Sadie was a likeable character with a believable voice. Despite her lies and con activities, I could relate to her as a reader. She had ambition and never let her goals out of her sight. Her relationship with her best friend, Brendan, was complex and I appreciated the nuances that were brought out between them. Their relationship deviated from the strict camps of pure platonic friendship and full on romance. Eileen Cook's decision to explore the in-between fit well with Sadie as a character who didn't have qualms cheating people out of a few bucks but never more on principle. Sadie knew she wasn't right to cheat people but she also knew what she thought was wrong.

The Almost Truth was a quick read once I got down to it proper. The narrative flowed and the plot didn't slow down at any point. Besides Sadie though, I didn't really feel like I got to know the other characters much. They waltzed in and out of various scenes but beyond their actions and a few words, there wasn't much to them. Then when I came to the last couple of chapters, I felt like these weren't nearly as developed as the preceding chapters. They came across like plot points simply strung up to conclude the book. Instead of seizing the end to create more depth, I felt they were appended in order to come to a resolution. That kind of sucked a bit of my appreciation out of the creativity that The Almost Truth was based on. After all, it's not everyday that I get to peer into the head of a con artist.

This review is also available at dudettereads.com.