reviews

I read The Face by Phil Whitaker a couple of days back and didn’t feel like writing a review about it. I felt cheated. This novel is supposed to be a thriller, but there are no thrills for the reader. Phil Whitaker makes a futile attempt to create mystery to get the readers hooked till the end, but the narrative is so boring that one eventually leaves the book midway. I had to read on though as I had decided to write a review of The Face.

Zoe wants to know the truth behind her father’s death, she wants to know Nottingham, the city where her  father was born and died. She doesn’t get to know why her father was driving like a maniac when he crashed his car, though the initial implications of the author are to suggest it a case of murder. The reader’s curiosity is never raised to an optimum level. There is hint every where that Declan has something to do with Zoe’s father Ray Arthur’s death, because they did something terrible togethr in the past.

That something terrible was just a replacing of a sketch of a supposed criminal when his original sketch is misplaced. You get it in the end and you feel cheated. Its not a good thriller and its not a good family drama too. Declan is jealous and fascinated by the way Ray treats her daughter with such affection, whereas Zoe never gets to be close to her father all her life. She doesn’t know that he had been suffering from depression, that he didn’t want to live alone in the house, and yet she embarks on a journey to find out more about how he died and  about his past.

The Face: To be avoided. Do something useful with your time.