The Boyfriend by Kerry Wilkinson feels like a bit of a departure from past psych thriller stories.
There is a lot of character-building and introspection from Jodie. The story is solely hers. As such, the reader only experiences things from her perspective. Period.
This is good and bad.
It is good because the reader gets to really deep dive into Jodie’s frame of mind and how she deals with everything. But it’s bad because it makes a lot of things one-dimensional. At times it also slows down the action.
You can read the plot points in the blurb and other reviews. Suffice to say that after Jodie’s dad dies, she is left with the responsibility of cleaning out his house. In the process, she finds something that brings past events in her life into question.
It’s a great premise, and it does deliver in many ways. There are plenty of suspects for each of the events, and as Jodie looks at people with a side-eye, so does the reader. The author definitely keeps the reader guessing.
However, there are also characters and events that have promise but lack follow through. Jodie’s mom is kind of a non-entity, conflict with the sister-in-law starts strong but fizzles, and her supposed best friend is just kind of…meh.
And then there is Jodie’s son, Owen. I don’t even know where to start with him. He plays a major part in the story. But it is all odd, really.
Because however you think the story is going to end, you are absolutely wrong. I guarantee it. Not only is the culprit of the main event not who you think, but the author saves one last gigantic “What the heck” moment that will probably drop your jaw to the floor.
Honestly, I am not quite sure of the purpose of it. It doesn’t exactly fit with the rest of the story, and almost seems like it’s gratuitous.
In fact, overall, it feels like this is an early attempt at writing because more recent books have been much more evenly plotted.
Regardless, I still enjoy Kerry Wilkinson’s writing, and The Boyfriend is a good psych thriller if solely for the shock factor.
Check out my review of The Perfect Daughter for a link to other books by Kerry, or type “Kerry Wilkinson” into the search bar! 🙂
Twitter: kerrywk
Author Bio:
Kerry Wilkinson is from the English county of Somerset but has spent far too long living in the north. It’s there that he’s picked up possibly made-up regional words like ‘barm’ and ‘ginnel’. He pretends to know what they mean.
He’s also been busy since turning thirty: his Jessica Daniel crime series has sold more than a million copies in the UK; he has written a fantasy-adventure trilogy for young adults; a second crime series featuring private investigator Andrew Hunter and the standalone thriller, Down Among The Dead Men.
