Dream Girl began very well but began to pall, I’m afraid. Around half way through there is a thoroughly ridiculous decision by Gerry, the protagonist, and after that I skimmed a good deal without missing much, I think. I found the ending contrived and far too much of a deus ex machina and I wasn’t sorry to finish the book.
The set-up is good. A successful novelist is confined to bed after an accident and, while pretty doped-up on pain killers, begins to receive odd phone calls from someone claiming to be the “real” version of a character he made up in his most successful book. Laura Lippman writes very well and for a hundred pages or so I was intrigued and involved. However, I began to find the story predictable, rather familiar and increasingly implausible. What begins with some rather sharp insights into Gerry’s attitudes to women moves on to some #metoo issues, which are well handled but which don’t say much which is new and the thriller plot didn’t do it for me at all.
There is enough here to make me want to try another of Laura Lipmann’s books, but overall I found this rather run-of-the-mill and hence quite disappointing.
(My thanks to Faber & Faber for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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