Every Contact Leaves A Trace

3.00 out of 5 (1 ratings)

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Format:: Hardback
Pages:: 384
Publisher:: Vintage
Publication Date:: 05 April 2012
Category:: Modern & Contemporary
ISBN:: 9780224094030

Description

If you were to ask me to tell you about my wife, I would have to warn you at the outset that I don't know a great deal about her. Or at least, not as much as I thought I did...' Alex is in his thirties, a solitary man who has finally found love in the form of his beautiful and vivacious wife, Rachel. When Rachel is brutally murdered one Midsummer Night by the lake in the grounds of their alma mater, Worcester College, Oxford, Alex's life as he knew it vanishes. He returns to Oxford that winter, and through the shroud of his shock and grief, begins to try to piece together the mystery surrounding his wife's death. Playing host to Alex's winter visit is Harry, Rachel's former tutor and trusted mentor, who turns out to have been involved in some way in almost every significant development of their relationship throughout their undergraduate years. In his exploration of Rachel's history, Alex also turns to Evie, Rachel's self-centred and difficult godmother, whose jealousy of her charge has waxed and waned over the years. And then there are her university friends, Anthony and Cissy, who shared with Rachel her love of Browning and a taste for the illicit. As Alex delves deep into the past to uncover shocking secrets and constantly shifting versions of the truth, it is with these virtual strangers as his guides that he begins to confront the terrifying reality that neither his life, nor his love, are the things he thought them to be.

Reader Reviews

Showing 1-1 out of 1 reviews.

'If you were to ask me to tell you about my wife, I would have to warn you at the outset that I don't know a great deal about her. Or at least, not as much as I thought I did...' So speaks Alex, the narrator of this unforgettable literary thriller. Alex is in his thirties, a solitary man who has finally found love in the form of his beautiful and vivacious wife, Rachel. When Rachel is brutally murdered one Midsummer Night by the lake in the grounds of their alma mater, Worcester College, Oxford, Alex's life as he knew it vanishes. He returns to Oxford that winter, and through the shroud of his shock and grief, begins to try to piece together the mystery surrounding his wife's death. Playing host to Alex's winter visit is Harry, Rachel's former tutor and trusted mentor, who turns out to have been involved in some way in almost every significant development of their relationship throughout their undergraduate years.My Thoughts:At book group we were all given a copy of ‘We Love This Book’ and inside Linwood Barclay has written an article on ‘domestic thrillers’ He explore this genre saying what if the killer is not unknown but actually somebody we live with, are married too, and they are not who we thought they are. There are some book recommended within the genre of ‘domesctic thrillers’ one of which is the brilliant’Before I go to Sleep’ by S J Watson. I had a read about the other recommendations and this book was one of themThere has been some negative reviews on Amazon about this book, and I can see where they are coming from. The book is one long narrative and it does seem that nothing much happens and it could have been a lot shorter. It opens with the murder of rachel, wife of Alex and has he tries to determine what happened and why he uncovers some things about his wife that he really knew nothing about.I thought about this book and the character of Rachel reminds me in a roundabout way of Rebecca. However with Rebecca she only loved herself and was very selfish, Rachel did love Alex.Although the book was a little longwinded I did find something compelling about it and did want to finish it for the whys and why nots. I think in this genre there are better books out there like the SJ Watson one but I do feel that it was an OK read you just need to stick with it.

3.00 out of 5

tina1969

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