The marriage of Nick and Amy is not just going through a bad patch, more a terminal disaster. Then Nick gets a call from a neighbour, and Amy has gone. It looks like an abduction and the police are called. In "Gone Girl" Nick narrates what happens next, but we also get to hear from Amy's diary, her version of their relationship right from the start. I really enjoyed the first two thirds of this intriguing thriller. Up to then it was more of a mystery drama. Here there were all sorts of questions that would obviously be answered later on. Why does Nick need to get rid of his disposable phone? I liked the setting. Carthage, Missouri situated right on the Mississippi river is wonderfully described. In fact Gillian Flynn's writing is sharp and drives the story relentlessly on. Our sympathies for Nick and Amy swop wildly from one to another. There are twists and turns as Nick becomes increasingly suspect to the detectives on the case. "It was my fifth lie to the police. I was just starting". The helpers at missing person's headquarters are equally nervous. "I'm just driving Mr Dunne to the police station. I'll be back in less than half an hour. No more than half an hour". I loved Amy's diary. Who is this person? Equally, who is Nick? Our sympathies for them veer wildly from one to the other. Nick's sister Go (short for Margot!)and Amy's parents are a brilliant characters. Unfortunately, the last third was disappointingly unreal. It was clever, but fanciful. And the ending was what the author wanted. There was an alternative that would have been so much better.
"I have these blanks". So says our narrator Mike Engleby, one of the most interesting characters I have ever encountered in any novel. But he is not particularly nice (to put it mildly). But he makes up for this with a dazzling intellect and a bunch of neuroses that might be familiar to many of us of the male species. The result is Sebastian Foulks' highly entertaining story of Engleby's life,that starts in the 1970's when he is at a top university, If you met him then, you would think he was a real weirdo, but we know he is a brilliant one. We also know that he has a thing for Jennifer, a student at another college. But as Mike says, are they "polar opposites"? "Jennifer ... always knowing the right thing to do .... trust old Toilet (Mike) to take the duff option". When she goes missing, Mike is as concerned as anyone. But he has a problem, those first four words. We now have a mystery, but fortunately Faulks never lets plot get in the way of Engleby's life story, and we still have a book packed with philosophical ruminations that we can all relate to. How can such an odd guy be such good company? Partly because he dabbles in drugs, more than dabbles in alcohol (pubs take up a large part of his time) and is a casual thief, but he is also interested in literature (he changes course from this subject as "it was really just a parlour game I happened to be good at. It didn't seem like scholarship, which ought to have been harder". He has an encyclopedic interest in music: classical and rock (someone please count the namechecks of 70's bands, hardly any of whom I have ever listened to - did Graham Parker ever play the Hammersmith Odeon?)and movies. No wonder this novel has such an appeal. Oh yes, he also listens to "The Archers" in the bath. Well he doesn't really listen, forget it, read the book.
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