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The Girl on the Train / Paula Hawkins

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Rachel is a troubled soul who lost her husband and her job due to her uncontrolled drinking.  Now she spends her days in a charade—travelling back and forth by rail to the city (thus the title) in the pretense of commuting to the job she no longer holds, whiling away the days in public libraries, and making frequent stops at the off-license.  From the train she spies on a Victorian terrace home in her old neighborhood that backs up to the rail line and imagines a fantasy existence for the couple living there, perhaps it’s the fantasy she never was able to experience herself. 

The night that the woman from her fantasy musings disappears and later turns up murdered, is a night that Rachel was nearby on a bender.  Only nebulous memories of that evening remain, but somehow she thinks they may hold important clues to an intricate web that involves her ex-husband, his new wife, the missing woman, and a mystery man. 

This is the new Gone Girl by all accounts.  It has shot straight to the number one position on the bestseller list since its release in January and the movie rights have been snapped up.

I enjoyed it well enough, but my criticism is that it is a bit of a slow-starter and the characters, at least for me, remained somewhat indistinguishable.  The women somehow all end up being sort of similar, the men all are rather one-dimensional and have a dark side, and the peripheral characters are even more forgettable—Cathy, Tara?  One by one the reader shifts suspicions on the next person.  Was it the therapist, the husband,  the new wife, the red-headed man, her ex, Rachel herself?  So, okay, it’s a good story, and keeps you guessing until the end.  I just think it could have been something better with some deeper character development.

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