Book Review - Elly Griffiths's Now You See Them
Now You See Them by Elly Griffiths
Published by: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Publication Date: October, 3rd 2019
Format: Kindle, 352 Pages
Rating: ★
To Buy (different edition than one reviewed)
Ten years and three kids ago Edgar Stephens proposed to Emma Holmes. They were are the start of their lives together. Emma had loved Edgar so fiercely while Edgar was blinded by the dazzle that was his fiance Ruby, the daughter of his best friend, the famous magician Max Mephisto. Since their last case together in 1953 they all went in different directions; Edgar and Emma to wedded bliss, Ruby to television stardom, and Max to Hollywood where even he settled down and had a few more kids with a starlet. They are reunited in Brighton for the funeral of Diablo. Who would have thought the irascible old performer would last this long? But the funeral brings them all together to catch up. Only none of their lives are as perfect as they seem. Emma in particular is dissatisfied with her lot. Her husband is now chief of police whereas she's chief of nappies. They should never have had a third kid. Sure Edgar was happy to finally have a son, but Emma was finally thinking that she would be out from under the yoke of domesticity and could get back to work. She was once the amazing Emma Holmes, always cracking the case. Now Edgar is always talking about the young girl who has replaced her on the force, Meg. Damn Meg, damn nappies, damn them all. When a young girl goes missing from Emma's old school Roedean, she wants in on the case. She HAS to be in on the case. It's the only thing that will make her feel human again. With the help of her friend, local journalist Sam, the two of them start to uncover clues that this girl's disappearance is just one of many. Clues they decide to withhold from the police who are more concerned with a film star the missing girl was obsessed with. But Emma makes serious errors in judgement. Again and again. She has been out of the game too long and her desire to prove her worth clashes with her judgement and it places everyone in danger. But worst is that she has endangered her own daughter. Will they be able to save her daughter as the police have to deal with the violence of the Mods and the Rockers on the beaches or will it be too late?
I don't want to be all cliched and say this series has lost it's magic, because at this point I haven't read The Midnight Hour so it might redeem itself, but I have never read a series that went from sublime to shit so quickly. The time jump could be blamed, but I don't really think that's the source of the problems. It's just that everything about the book is wrong. Instead of letting the mystery be the driving force it's on the back burner until the last minute with a solution that I saw from the start and the cringeworthy cliche of child in danger and oodles of violence towards women. And as for the characters? Can we talk about a more morose and miserable lot? What happened to these people I knew and loved? Yes, ten years can change a lot, but it's more like Elly Griffiths lost her connection to the characters... Rivalry among the women? Emma who is now a stay at home mom is jealous of the new female cop Meg just because that used to be her? Emma could have welcomed Meg with open arms as the next generation, the woman to carry on her legacy, but no, that wouldn't be in fitting with this series new grim aesthetic. And as for Meg not liking Emma without even meeting her? Please. And that's not even my biggest issue! Was the point of this whole book to explode the myth of happily ever after with Emma and Edgar's marriage being so steeped in dissatisfaction? I mean, couldn't that at least have been a source of joy? A source of at least some version of contentment for at least one of them? I just wanted to yell at everyone and say that this wasn't them, following which I would channel Cher and tell them to snap out of it. What's most annoying though is if you look hard enough the elements were here, we could have had Max doing some Maxim de Winter shit at his big county house now that he's lord of the manor, we could have had Ruby doing a British Bewitched, instead, everyone is bemoaning and bitching about EVERYTHING. Which makes me bemoan and bitch about what happened to my favorite new series. Seriously, what happened? Where is the magic!?!
Post a Comment