There’s no nuance in Karen Hamilton’s debut novel The Perfect Girlfriend. The narrator, Juliette (aka Lily. aka Elizabeth) is crazy. For reasons. She’s on a mission: to reclaim Nate, the man who dumped her seven months ago, unceremoniously kicking her out of his swanky Richmond (near London) flat.

Nearly seven months ago, Nate had appeared in a chapter of my life like a scene from a romantic novel. As I’d taken my gaze away from my computer screen at the hotel reception desk – a work smile fixed firmly in place – I’d struggled not to gasp out loud. The man in front of me looked as though he had absorbed the best bits of life and shrugged off anything unpleasant or sad.

A one-night stand turns into co-habitation, but that is short lived and Nate tells Juliette that he needs some space. He finds her a new apartment in Reading, moves her in, pays three months rent for her and bids her adieu. Of course, Juliette isn’t having any of it. She wants Nate and “his family’s welcoming acceptance, the comfortable lifestyle and kids who grow up to be a footballer….”

Juliette has a plan. First, she takes the course to be a flight attendant. (Nate is a pilot.) She makes sure that she doesn’t bump into him, thus providing him with the “space” he claimed to need. She tries to make friends. She tries to “improve” herself in an effort to be, well, the perfect girlfriend.

Perfect psycho girlfriend.

Hamilton pulls out all the stops when it comes to unhinging Juliette. She has keys to Nate’s apartment. She knows all his passwords. She puts spyware on his phone. She knows his work schedule. She sabotages any perceived romantic relationship between Nate and other women. And if you think these psycho ex-girlfriend moves are mere child’s play, just wait.

There is also the problem of Bella. Her identity is revealed slowly, so I won’t spoil it here. She is a thorn in Juliette’s side and as Juliette says herself “Revenge is a dish best served cold, and mine is going to be frozen.”

Look, we’ve all had a relationship that has made us a little bit crazy. I am pretty sure I have done more than one slightly crazy thing to get the desired object of my affection to like me back. The trouble with Juliette is that she has no dimension. I think we’re supposed to feel some sympathy for her because of a childhood trauma, but I didn’t. Another “big” reveal is meant to add fuel to that flame, but it really just seems more convenient than anything.

Still, the unembellished prose races through the crazy landscape of Juliette’s plan to win Nate back and most readers will enjoy the ride.

Child 44, Tom Rob Smith’s 2008 debut, likely would have languished on my tbr shelf indefinitely if it hadn’t been for Litsy  Every month, a Litsy member, Sarah,  hosts a book spin. We choose 20 books from our TBR shelf and she chooses two random numbers, a #bookspin and a #doublespin. It’s our opportunity to clear some books from our shelves. Even if you end up abandoning the books (which I did the first couple months), at least they’re off your shelves.

Leo Demidov is a member of MGB, Russia’s State Security Force under Stalin. It’s 1959 and everyone is suspicious of everyone else. Leo has arrived at his position by way of a decorated stint in the army. He’s good at his job. He

enjoyed the independence of his operations, although he was careful to keep that observation to himself. […] He’d flourished. As a result he’d been awarded the Order of Suvorov Second Class. His levelheadedness, military success, good looks and above all his absolute and sincere belief in his country had resulted in him becoming a poster boy …

Things get dicey for Leo, though, when he is asked to check in with a colleague who insists that his four-year-old son has been murdered. The authorities have called the death an accident, though, and Leo is tasked with convincing the family that no further investigation is needed. This event is the beginning of the cracks in Leo’s life and his belief in a state where Stalin’s “well-known aphorism Trust but Check” actually means “Check on Those We Trust.” It is almost impossible to determine who is trustworthy because everyone seems to have something to hide.

When an operation Leo is in charge of goes awry, he’s demoted and sent to work in a backwater town. That’s when the bodies start piling up, bodies of kids. Leo convinces his new boss that there’s a serial killer on the loose and the two men start investigating – no easy task when the authorities aren’t really willing to share information, even with each other.

Child 44 is a thriller and there were certainly some exciting moments. Leo is a great character, and I was invested in his growth from rule-follower to renegade truth-seeker. I think this books, which is the first in a series, would likely appeal to many readers, but I felt sort of ambivalent about it. Perhaps it was all the Russian names, or the fact that we got just about every character’s backstory and so the plot dragged a little.

Still, I had no trouble reading it. It’s a solid book.

My son actually purchased this Samuel W. Gailey’s novel Deep Winter because he liked the cover. In my experience, this isn’t generally a great way to choose a book, but when he was doing a purge this book ended up off his bookshelf and on mine because I thought it sounded good.

This is the story of Danny Bedford, a man who, when he was a kid,  suffered brain-damage after a near drowning that cost him the lives of both his parents. Since then he has been raised by an abusive uncle and now lives a solitary life over the laundromat where he works. His only friend is a waitress named Mindy.

Danny lives in Wyalusing, a backwater town in Eastern Pennsylvania. When the novel opens, Danny has trekked the three miles out to Mindy’s trailer to deliver a carved bird he’s made for her birthday. He comes across a scene of horror: Mindy is dead. 

Her body sprawled out on the trailer floor next to Danny like a discarded rag doll. He knelt beside her with his hands folded and clenched together in his lap, like he was praying at her bedside. Blood soaked into the faded carpet from an open wound on the back of her head, and a few pieces of jagged glass were still stuck in her scalp.

Because Danny intellectually impaired, it’s easy to pin Mindy’s death on him, and that’s exactly what happens. What follows is the story of that death, and the malevolent tendrils that reach out into the community because of it.  The story is told from multiple points of view, which probably helps things move along. 

Gailey’s novel is populated by a relatively unpleasant cast of characters, most notably Sokowski, the Deputy, and his side-kick, Carl. In fact, the villains are so awful they’re almost caricatures. It takes place in the dead of winter, during a storm, and is almost relentlessly grim. 

Gailey has written for film and TV and that’s how Deep Winter reads. There’s not a lot of literary bells and whistles, here. That’s not a criticism, really, although I didn’t love the book. It’s a straightforward, nuance-free crime thriller and I doubt you’d have any trouble turning the pages.