Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
Not too much to say here except I almost DNFed this one like 4 times. Nothing happens for a good portion of this book until the 70 percent mark. And even then it had me going what is going on every five seconds while I read. I think that McPherson should have gotten the plot moving much faster than she did. The character of Lindsay just didn’t seem to be aware of anything that was going on for most of the book and even when she finally catches on to things, I just felt a bit letdown by the reveals. It was too much happening there to follow at one point and I was just glad to finish this one.
The Dead Room follows 30 something year old widow, Lindsay Hale. Lindsay is devastated by the death of her husband Kai and has her brother telling her she should return home to Scotland and stay with him and his family. Lindsay agrees to return though and ends up getting lost on her way to her brother’s and meets an elderly woman named Peggy who herself is widowed and tells Lindsay to hold onto what she wants since being widowed. She also gives Lindsay an Agatha Christie book and then she is on her way to her brother’s. Things seem off though when Lindsay arrives and she starts to wonder why her brother does not seem to have the same memories of their childhood like she does, why her sister in law is being so off with her. And when Lindsay starts to wonder about meeting people that claim they have met her before, she worries that there is something wrong with her.
I wish I could just say Lindsay is being naive for most of the book, however, there’s naive and then just not paying attention to a blessed thing that was her. And even when things made zero sense she would just go along with it. There was a lot of things alluded to in Lindsay’s childhood that I still couldn’t fully understand and I didn’t get what I was supposed to be taking away from her and her supposed PTSD from it all when it was vaguely written.
The other characters were not much better I have to say. Probably because we just get Lindsay’s POV on them all and then we get to the rather rushed/clunky ending. I don’t want to spoil, but I had a hard time with the reveals and about what was really going on. It just seemed impossibly messy.
The flow as I said wasn’t that great. When I got to the 50 percent mark and it felt like nothing was happening I was tempted to DNF it then. And then again at 55, again at 60, etc. Like I said, the book has nothing happening, just events here and there and Lindsay wondering if things are real and you wondering if things are really happening, etc.
The setting of Scotland in this one was very dark. I don’t think I have read many mysteries/thrillers taking place here. I did like the change of scenery for a thriller.
The ending was confusing as I said earlier. You get the reveals, but you also have to think about how many of the choices some of the characters made, made zero sense.
