Dangerous Minds Book Review

What is it this about?: The trials and tribulations of Claire Roget’s life rather than a game of cat-and-mouse that the blurb promises with her nemesis.

What else is this about?: The villain of the piece, Jerome, is the “what else” next to the wealth of focus on Claire’s personal and professional life.

Should you read: Don’t waste your time. Nope.

Stars: 2

Blurb: Can a psychiatrist prevent a crime when it exists only in a patient’s mind?

When she receives a wedding invitation from one of her former patients, forensic psychiatrist Dr Claire Roget is more than a little alarmed. Highly intelligent and manipulative, Jerome Barclay suffers from a severe personality disorder. Although she has never been able to prove it, Claire believes him to be highly dangerous, responsible for at least three suspicious deaths and she fears for the safety of his new bride. What’s more, Jerome seems to know rather too much about Claire’s personal and professional life, including intimate details concerning her other patients. What sinister game is he playing?

With no proof as to Jerome s possibly murderous intentions, Claire’s hands are tied. Can she prevent a tragedy unfolding? And is Claire herself at risk?

This is another one of those books that falls into the category of the blurb over-promising and the actual book undelivering.

So, here is what attracted me to the book: Claire and the promise of tension, even a cat-and-mouse game perhaps between Claire and Jerome. A psychiatrist, fully understanding of what Jerome is, would make a formidable opponent for a highly dangerous man, capable of murder – several times over.

What did I get? Something … flat.

While the blurb creates the impression that Jerome might play a big part in the book, the reality is far from the truth. Instead, he is relegated to a minimal presence, sparring verbally with Claire while she strives hard to figure out what he is up to with this impending wedding invite. While Claire is a promising character, she is lacklustre really because Jerome, set up as her opponent, is nothing more than a villain called upon to twirl the proverbial villain moustache every so often.

Instead the narrative is devoted to Claire, to laying out her life – her broken relationship with her boyfriend and her family, and her various relationships with the patients she works with. I didn’t think the broken relationship had any point in her life and the greater story at large, unfortunately and more about her broken relationships with her family might have been mildly more interesting.

Ultimately, this reads like a bits of plot that weren’t strong enough to stand alone, cobbled together into a larger story that ultimately didn’t work out.

I’m sad. This had such potential!