A Slow Fire Burning

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The relationship she forms with the 80-year-old lady (whose name I can’t remember) is lovely, they care for one another, and it’s an excellent example of young and old helping each other and keeping company to the benefit of both parties. Laura, especially; she was left hobbled and damaged and then betrayed over and over by the people who should have been there for her. The combination of intriguing mystery and fleshed out and equally intriguing characters was superbly executed and really elevated this rating for me.

A truly satisfying, multi-layered maze of a mystery with a cast of flawed characters so real I'm still thinking of them days after I turned the last page. The third thriller from British novelist Paula Hawkins — whose debut book “The Girl on the Train” (2015) sold millions and made millions more in theaters with Emily Blunt in the starring role — “A Slow Fire Burning” continues Hawkins’ penchant for telling stories from multiple points of view. When at last the flow of blood seemed to slow, Laura took off her T-shirt and dropped it on the floor, slipped out of her jeans, dropped her knickers, and wriggled out of her bra, inhaling sharply through her teeth as the metal catch scraped against the cut, hissing, "Fuck fuck mother of fuck.However, the last half of the book was extremely entertaining and had some twists that I was not quite expecting.

Early in the book, one of the women mentions how old books are slowly self-combusting, alluding to the deterioration that occurs inside paper. Looking up at the bridge above the canal, she thought she might have seen someone, just for a moment, but then they were gone, and she was alone, gripped by paralyzing fear. Even though all of them were incredibly damaged to the point it was sad and depressing, I was intrigued with their stories and felt an incredible sense of empathy for them.The young woman Laura, a tragic past, I felt sorry for and Irene a older woman, with a big heart, the only character I actually liked.

Yet, a big YET, despite the book being character led, Hawkins uses the characterisations to create a beautifully weighted read. Each person the spotlight falls on seems to be hiding something and as additional information is progressively fed in I found that my perception of what was going on in the background was subtly (or sometime not so subtly) challenged. You keep asking yourself why you’re doing it because you reread about a character you already disliked and you didn’t pay enough attention to remember why you really disliked him or her.She had to lift the (always surprisingly, unpleasantly heavy) cassette out of the little toilet at the back of the boat, carry it through the cabin and out onto the towpath, and from there a full hundred yards to the loo block, where the waste had to be tipped out into the main toilet and flushed away, the cassette rinsed out to clear whatever remained. It was a bright morning, cold for March, though white buds on glossy new branches of plane and birch hinted at spring. With a limited cast, a whodunnit reveal it is rarely shocking anymore, but the reasoning behind the crime itself was something that actually made my jaw drop! This is a well-written book, the words flow nicely, and the title was a great success, depicting the slow fire burning of anger, resentment, jealousy, hatred and deceit.