Invisible Victim by Mel Sherratt

​      I read a lot of thrillers. Copious amounts, really. And here’s one thing you can bet money on…if a book experiences the need to advertise its excellence past the title…in such exaggerated exclamations as heartarresting thriller of devastating proportions or whatever…it crap and knows it and is overcompensating for it. Don’t believe me? Just read this book, it’s a shining example of it.
    Straight form the lowest hanging branches of the ever blooming lady thriller tree this book, featuring an almost all female cast and the lamentably underwhelming amounts of both mystery and suspense, tells a story of abductor and abductees. The perspective alternates as you’d expect, so you get both sides. An abductor who believes themselves to have been a victim their entire life is now determined to victimize others. And (to no gasp) make them invisible. There you go, that’s the title.
     There are no surprises here, not for any reasonably intelligent readers familiar with the genre. The writing is serviceable in that very plain way, but trite. In fact, that about covers this novel in its entirety, serviceable but trite in every way. The plainness of style which sometimes can be used to trick or deceive or delight (something Scandinoir specifically has mastered so well) here is just plain. In culinary jargon this is the cheap white bread and water of thrillers. It just doesn’t thrill. And leans too heavily on its estrogen makeup for comfort.
     The author has done tons of these, apparently, albeit all serialized, with this being the random standalone. Interestingly enough, her career emerged following the boom in lady thrillers after 12 years of rejections, which is a sad testament to what popularity does to quality standards.
     So there you go, the blandest of the bland for the least demanding of the audiences. Nothing at all special or interesting or recommendable about it, though it did have the decency to be relatively short and to read very quickly. Thanks Netgalley.