The all new 50 Books Challenge!
Title: Don't Ever Tell by Brandon Massey
Details: Copyright 2008, Pinnacle Books
Synopsis (By Way of Back Cover): "DARK SECRETS. . .
With a new identity, a new city to live in, and a wonderful new husband, Rachel Moore believes she's finally free of the demons in her past. But nothing could be farther from the truth. For the deadly secrets she thought were long-buried are now on the brink of being exposed. . .
HAVE A WAY. . .
Someone has a vendetta against Rachel. Someone whom she betrayed a long time ago. Someone who is determined to make her pay--no matter the cost. . .
OF COMING BACK WITH A VENGEANCE. . .
Now Rachel knows it's just a matter of time before her dangerous past meets up with her present--and destroys everything she's worked so hard for. Because if there's one thing that can be counted on--her enemy never forgets or forgives and will do whatever it takes to see Rachel suffer. . . "
Why I Wanted to Read It: Yup, another crime fiction offering. But that cryptic cover! Also, did I mayhaps mention my limited selection?
How I Liked It:
This book contains murder, torture, domestic violence, and police brutality, and the review discusses that. Please proceed accordingly.
Who is this book really about? Whose story is this, really?
Plenty of times, a book is not about the thing it's supposed to be about. And that's okay!
A book about the Holocaust which is also in large part about the author's relationship with his father and trauma? That can be okay!
But sometimes when a story is being told and you realize the focus is not on the character that you think it should be, it can get complicated. We'll get there.
First, meet Rachel Moore, a stylish, sexy, gorgeous, extremely-driven hairstylist. But more importantly, meet her through the eyes of her husband (as we do), Joshua Moore, a clumsy, geeky graphic designer who reflects as we meet Rachel that he honestly wondered why she had fallen in love with him in the first place since he was no one special, let alone compared to her. They're hosting a party with friends and his wife seems distracted, and despite some enthusiastic sex that night, she wakes up screaming from a nightmare.
The book opens intriguingly. Despite the cryptic back cover, we meet the mysterious demon from her past intent on revenge before we actually meet Rachel. Ex-cop Dexter Bates, a particularly vicious (and so respected by other prisoners) convicted murderer is being transferred to a different prison, and it's clear he has a plan. In between violent fantasies of how he's going to make some woman (his wife, we find out) pay, Dexter conducts a complicated, gruesome escape with conspirators from the outside, supporting his mission to hunt down his wife and exact revenge, at least so far as getting him on his way.
Rachel is keeping track of her ex and his escape and struggling to keep all of this from her husband. Finally, she disappears one day, leaving a note profusely apologizing for lying to him and for not knowing when she'll be back, but promising she will return, along with the key to a padlocked box at her salon which turns out to hold a gun, and her husband is left wondering what on earth is going on. He begins to put together the pieces by hacking into her computer. From there, he discovers bits of his wife's secret life (a secret island! Private accounts!) and eventually tracks her down.
Meanwhile, Dexter is cutting a bloody swath on the hunt for information about his ex. Gruesomely torturing and murdering friends and family of Rachel's in pursuit of her, we're also given backstory as to how they met, why they married, and their short but horrible marriage ending in his arrest for Rachel's attempted murder.
By the time Dexter finally reaches Rachel, a bloody showdown occurs and the Moores emerge the victors. We're given an epilogue of their happy life post Dexter, enjoying life on the island.
This story reminded me quite a bit of one of my all-time favorite Stephen King novels Rose Madder. Both detail a woman escaping an abusive marriage with a murdering police officer to start a new life, and him tracking her down (complete with bloody trail) for a final showdown. Both murderers are misogynist homophobes and both seem genuinely terrifyingly unkillable.
But Rose Madder centered on the victim's transformation as a part of her eventual victory. Rosie McClendon had to become her true self (or rather, back to her true self) before she could defeat her past.
Rachel Moore, on the other hand, was pretty well transformed before the book, more or less, until the past comes calling again and must be dealt with.
But the most telling (and sometimes frustrating) difference is that this story really isn't really about Rachel Moore at all. It's about her husband, Joshua Moore.
We see Joshua's growth as a person and a character. He finally stands up to his emotionally abusive mother and enforces boundaries (rather troublingly, his father who has witnessed this abuse for years and said nothing, shakes his hand afterward and tells him he's proud of him and that he needed to stand up to his mother long ago). He practices shooting a gun, something he feared to do, in preparation for an altercation with his wife's former husband. By the time he first meets Dexter, he's the first person from Rachel's life that Dexter fails in murdering on his bloody information hunt, and in the final showdown, Joshua helps considerably with the fight and it's pretty clear if he wasn't there, Dexter wouldn't have been defeated. To say nothing of the fact we witness him learning to sleuth and figure out (successfully) his wife's past and her current location.
By contrast, Rachel is almost a secondary character in this story. We see her struggling with the truth, but nowhere near as much as we see Joshua struggling because she won't tell him. In backstory, Rachel is raised by her widowed aunt after her parents' death and later wonders if not having a father and thus looking for a strong man is what lead her to a controlling abuser. (SIDE NOTE: That's... not really how any of that works? Yes, abusers do look for weakness and to exploit it, but Rachel's aunt is shown to be nothing other than loving and competent. The mere absence of a male caregiver really wouldn't be enough to drive someone to an abusive male partner. However, given that this is from Rachel's point of view, it's plausible it's her warped way of blaming herself for her abuse, horribly typical for a survivor.)
When Joshua finally tracks her down, they do talk about their relationship (although given what Rachel's been through, Joshua could stand to be a bit more understanding) and move forward better. But again, that's as much a Joshua moment as a Rachel one.
To be clear, Joshua's development is absolutely the kind of character development you'd welcome, particularly in a story like this! But making the victim of domestic abuse a side character in the story of her new husband's development and his coming of age cheapens it somewhat.
The story does have excellent suspense and is one of the most compelling reads (as in "lose large quantities of time because you're busy turning pages" compelling) in quite a while (and this has been a year with many compelling, suspenseful reads). Chapters flew by and I finished it in far shorter a time than I usually would.
It's a masterfully suspenseful read with excellent character development, it's just regrettable about which character got the most development.
Notable: Given the staggeringly high amount of domestic violence among law enforcement, having an abusive partner be a cop is a bit of realism from both this author and Stephen King. Having the cop be convicted of attempted murder is less likely, but Dexter Bates is Black, which would increase the chances. This author goes a bit harder on the police line, with Dexter noting as he tortures a victim for information
A punch to the kidney caused the kind of sickening, blood-in-the-urine agony that stayed with you long afterward. Members of his team had used it to force confessions from hardheaded suspects before they lawyered-up, and he'd brought the tactic home, unleashing it on his wife whenever she delivered his dinner lukewarm, neglected to launder and press his clothes just right, or pissed him off in general. (pg 215)
When Joshua uncovers a newspaper headline about his wife's past about Dexter's arrest, Rachel is quoted as saying that
Prosecutors stated that the victim admitted she had been subjected to domestic abuse throughout her marriage to Bates, but that she had been afraid to report the abuse because of her husband's respected standing in the Chicago Police Department.
"She feared her cries for help would be ignored," Young said. "Her husband is a decorated narcotics detective, and she worried that the 'police brotherhood' would close ranks to protect him from persecution." (pg 221)
Both Dexter and the abusive killer in Rose Madder, Norman Daniels, are both homophobes with gay victims. The encounter in this novel contains significantly less homophobic stereotypes (and before you object via the publication date, 2008 vs 1995, you're right! A lot of progress was made on Queer rights in that time! But a lot of progress had been made in 1995 and it was absolutely not present in King's novel), thankfully.
The murders are as gruesome as you can imagine, but a line that took me out of the brutality a bit in a way that didn't quite work was this line as Dexter is torturing and murdering someone in Rachel's life for information:
She went as rigid as if she'd been given an electrical shock, and released a high-pitched shriek that would have shamed Mariah Carey. (pg 215)
I realize portraying murder/torture in absurdity is part of the horror, but the line just made me laugh and cringe.
Growing up, the only strong male presences in her life had lived on the television screen-- watching Bill Cosby play Cliff Huxtable in The Cosby Show was like seeing the father she wished she could remember. (pg 146)
Speaking of cringing, oof.
To borrow from another book review blog, I guess this falls under "SIGNS THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 2008 DEPARTMENT".
Final Grade: B
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