The new bestseller king, Joel dicker returns with the difficult mission of conquering again his millions of readers eager for new plots of narrative tempos as variable as they are magnetic.
Escaping the formula for success shouldn't be easy. Even more so when this formula is bringing freshness and ingenuity to one of the most popular literary genres: suspense.
Dickër's ability to deconstruct the chronology of a plot while keeping the reader perfectly positioned in each of the temporal settings is worth studying. It is as if Dickër knew about hypnotism, or psychiatry, and applied everything to his novels for the final enjoyment of the reader hooked by the different pending issues like octopus tentacles.
On this new occasion we return to the pending accounts, to the issues of a more or less recent past in which the characters surviving that time have much to hide or to finally learn about the truth.
And that is where another truly remarkable aspect of this author comes into play. It is about playing with the subjective perception of its characters regarding the overwhelming objectivity that is making its way as the final story is composed. A kind of symmetrical reading in which the reader can look at the character and a reflection that changes as the story progresses. The closest thing to magic that literature can offer us.
On July 30, 1994 everything begins (what has been said, the formula of a past date marked in red, such as the day of the drama of the baltimore or the murder of Nola Kellergar from the Harry Quebert case)
We know that reality is one, that after the death of the family of the mayor of Orphea along with Samuel Paladin's wife there can only be one truth, one motivation, one unequivocal reason. And delusional of us at times we seem to know that objective side of things.
Until the story unfolds, moved by those magical characters so empathetic that Joel Dicker creates.
Twenty years later Jesse Rosemberg is about to celebrate his retirement as a police officer. The resolution of the macabre case of July 94 still resonates as one of his great successes.
Until Stephanie Mailer wakes up in Rosemberg and in her partner Derek Scott (the other one in charge of elucidating the famous tragedy) some sinister doubts that over the passage of so many years cause shocking doubts.
But Stephanie Mailer disappears leaving them halfway, with the incipient bitterness of the biggest mistake of her career ...
Give yourself that moment, you can already imagine, present and past are advancing in that masquerade on the other side of the mirror, while the direct and frank gaze of the truth is sensed in the dim light on the other side of the mirror. It is a look that is directed directly at you, as a reader. And until you discover the face of truth you will not be able to stop reading.
Although it is true that the aforementioned resource of flashbacks and the destructuring of the story are once again the protagonists of the plot, this time it gives me the impression that this search for overcoming previous novels, at times we end up shipwrecked in a pandemonium of potential criminals who are being discarded with a certain impression of dizzying resolution.
The perfect novel does not exist. And the quest for twists and turns can bring more confusion than storytelling glory. In this novel part of the great appeal of Dicker is sacrificed, that immersion more…. How to say it…, humanist, that contributed greater doses of emotion for a more tasty empathic implication in the case of Harry Quebert or the hand of the Baltimore.
Maybe it's me and other readers prefer that dizzying run between scenes and potential murderers with a string of murders behind their backs that you laugh at any serial killer. However, when I found myself finishing the book and sweating as if it were Jesse himself or his partner Dereck, I thought that if rhythm prevailed it was necessary to submit to it and the experience was finally gratifying with those little bitter lees of good wine too exposed to the risks of the search for the great reserve.
With a small discount for accesses through this blog (always appreciated), you can now buy the novel The Disappearance of Stephanie Mailer, the new book by Joel Dickër, here: