The story starts at Heathrow airport when Ted Severson heads for the bar after hearing his flight is delayed. There he meets the magnetic Lily and after a few too many martinis he confides his darkest thoughts. He tells Lily about his wife’s infidelity, how they were a mismatch from the start - he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché. But most of all he confides how he wishes her dead. In a heartbeat Lily offers to help him carry out his wish.
Lily isn’t your stereotype blonde beauty, she was born with a different kind of morality. She doesn’t believe in letting people get away with things like infidelity or lying. She doesn’t believe in turning the other cheek or forgiveness. Her father is a reasonably famous author, and her mother an academic. Their household was a free-for-all of revolving parties with artists, writers, friends, and lovers of both parents coming and going throughout her childhood.
She was mostly left to her own devices, and when the odious Chet took an interest in the thirteen year old with the flaming red hair and the long thin legs, he annoyed her, really annoyed her, she knew what was on his mind. She told Ted ”I’d been waiting for two things since killing Chet. Waiting to get caught and waiting to feel bad. Neither happened, and I knew that neither would. Truthfully" she said, "I don’t think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? and your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing."
We are brought up to believe that killing someone is the worst thing we could ever do, but is it? If a person is destroying lives, leaving a wake of devastation and overwhelming grief that can never be healed is it really the worst thing we can do for society to remove that person? I can think of a few cases where I would be capable of pulling the trigger.
It's well written and has some excellent twist and turns, and plots I didn’t see coming. It sagged a bit in the middle and there are almost entire chapters given over to car journeys which were surplus to the plot, but the end is sweet.
Lily isn’t your stereotype blonde beauty, she was born with a different kind of morality. She doesn’t believe in letting people get away with things like infidelity or lying. She doesn’t believe in turning the other cheek or forgiveness. Her father is a reasonably famous author, and her mother an academic. Their household was a free-for-all of revolving parties with artists, writers, friends, and lovers of both parents coming and going throughout her childhood.
She was mostly left to her own devices, and when the odious Chet took an interest in the thirteen year old with the flaming red hair and the long thin legs, he annoyed her, really annoyed her, she knew what was on his mind. She told Ted ”I’d been waiting for two things since killing Chet. Waiting to get caught and waiting to feel bad. Neither happened, and I knew that neither would. Truthfully" she said, "I don’t think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? and your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing."
We are brought up to believe that killing someone is the worst thing we could ever do, but is it? If a person is destroying lives, leaving a wake of devastation and overwhelming grief that can never be healed is it really the worst thing we can do for society to remove that person? I can think of a few cases where I would be capable of pulling the trigger.
It's well written and has some excellent twist and turns, and plots I didn’t see coming. It sagged a bit in the middle and there are almost entire chapters given over to car journeys which were surplus to the plot, but the end is sweet.
~Happy Reading ~
Polly x
It might be a good thing for society if someone thoroughly nasty is got rid of prematurely, but I couldn't be the one pulling the trigger. I don't support the death penalty either. Someone who is a menace to society should be in jail for life rather than sentenced to death. But it sounds like a good read, I must track it down.
ReplyDeleteHi Nick, I would support the death penalty only if there was no shadow of a doubt about guilt.
DeleteIt sounds like good read.
ReplyDeleteHm, interesting. I would never support the death penalty. that said, if someone killed a child of mine I would be capable of murder I'm sure.
ReplyDelete