The Remains

The Remains by Vincent Zandri
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This was an odd book. It started with an interesting premise. A young woman’s identical twin sister died of cancer and when some odd things begin to happen, she writes a journal in the form of letters to her sister. When they were children they went into a forbidden wood and were molested by a serial killer. They swore to never tell anyone, especially after he was later sent to prison for 30 years for the rape of a woman and was suspected in other rapes and murders. Suddenly, Rebecca starts receiving odd text messages, calls and evidence that someone has been watching her. When she finds that the man has been released, she begins to fear for her life. Added to the plot is an autistic savant artist who paints pictures for her of what seem to be her nightmares.

Unfortunately, the book seemed to fizzle out after the first third. Odd things happen which ought to send a sane person right to the police, but Rebecca seems to be unusually stupid. One minute she is a competent young businesswoman and the next she is a fainting hysteric straight from a Victorian novel. She is totally ineffectual and contributes to most of her worst problems. Another reviewer mentioned the jarring notes in the story and I completely agree. The oddest was the directions for making her favorite scrambled eggs. I could believe that someone substituted a page or two from a cookbook into the manuscript.

The story is interesting and has some novel plot elements, so it is worth the read, but don’t expect to be impressed with the writing.


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