The Locked Door by Freida McFadden

 

Nora is a doctor. That's a profession that saves lives. Nora has this constant need to prove (to herself) that she was different. Different from her father, who broke her home and sense of family by killing 30 odd women in the basement of their home. It would sound thrilling as a story that some other child's parent was a monster and murderer. It was obviously not a good feeling to actually be the daughter of a horrid man.

I found Nora to be constantly on tenterhooks. She was good at her job but the knife in her hand could turn her either into a messiah or a murderer. I was intrigued of her childhood story and wondered if the traits could come down generations. (It quite reminded me of a certain episode from Defending Jacob about this killer instinct/gene. There was supposedly another book called, In My Father's Basement, which handled a similar story line.)

Nora's father was in prison and her mother had killed herself in her cell. Nora had dealt with abandonment bravely. She had no faith in relationships and moreover she had killed the old identity when her grandmother took her in, ensuring she turned out to be a different person.

As Nora trudges along as a surgeon, she one day comes to know that one of her patient's was murdered and more shockingly, that she was murdered in the same MO as her father had resorted to. As one more murder shakes her world, Nora is shaking in fear.

Had her father been released from his high security prison, where he has been for the last 26 years? If it wasn't him, was there a copycat killer on the prowl? Why was this killer aiming at her patients? Why was this killer leaving severed limbs in her house or her car? Was she involved in these killings without her knowledge?

As I tackle as many McFadden books as I can, The Locked Door was a better story line than Never Lie. I like the concept of mind games have been addressed.

Narration can make or break a listening experience. I could not lower the volume of the audiobook as I would have missed out the dialogues... so I quietly "adjusted" (mildly suffered) through the narrator's voice. Those listening to this one, try to listen to it on the phone or iPad speaker instead of earphones.

Some sentences made me giggle:

“I hate it when there’s a load of laundry sitting in the dryer. It’s like I can sense the laundry in there, taunting me. Put me away, Nora. That’s not strange, is it? Doesn’t everyone’s laundry talk to them?”

Then there was the one about how Nora described her mother. If there was a book about mothers, it would surely describe my mother, she says. Her ultimate job is to only keep feeding me! I could almost see my son's rolling eyes in my head :D