Eye of the Beholder by Emma Bamford
Inspired by Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller Vertigo , the author of the “subtle and ominous” (Lee Child) debut Deep Water returns with a wholly original and sinister novel about the beauty industry, a ghostwriter, and the reappearance of the lover she thought was dead.
When Maddy Wight is hired to ghostwrite the memoir of world-renowned cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds, she thinks it might just be her chance to get her career back on track. She travels to Angela’s remote estate in the Scottish Highlands to hunker down and learn everything she can. But the deeper she digs, the more elusive the doctor becomes. Is there more hidden beneath the surface of the kaleidoscopic beauty industry than Angela wants to reveal?
Sharing the estate is Angela’s enigmatic business partner, Scott, whose mercurial moods change as quickly as the conditions on the darkening moors outside. Confined to the glass-walled house, Maddy can’t shake the feeling of being watched. As objects go missing, handprints appear on the windows, and a stranger lurks in the grounds, she finds herself drawn ever closer to Scott. Returning to London once the book is finished, Maddy is excited for their future together. But her dreams are shattered at the book launch when Angela learns that Scott has leapt to his death from the Scottish cliffs.
Which is why, months later and lost in a fog of grief, Maddy is completely blindsided when she sees Scott entering the Tube station just in front of her. It can’t be him, can it? After all, Scott is dead…or is he?
In exploring the differences between looking and seeing, surface and depth, and the power of the female gaze, this tribute to Hitchcock’s 1958 film masterpiece If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, how much can you trust what you see?
Review:
I received an advance galley of this book courtesy of the publisher via NetGalley. All thoughts are my own.
When I read the synopsis for this book, I expected a fast-paced thriller wrapped in an excellent mystery. Sadly, it slightly missed the mark for me. It’s not a bad read, just not as thrilling as I’d hoped.
The story follows Maddy Wight, a talented ghostwriter who is hired to work on the memoir of the enigmatic cosmetic surgeon Dr. Angela Reynolds. Maddy is swept away to Angela’s isolated home in Scotland to write the book, but much to her surprise, Angela is very busy and will be traveling during this time. She leaves Maddie alone at her home and schedules several check-ins with her to review the book and answer any questions she may have. Maddy is confused as to why she couldn’t just do this from her flat in London but decides that maybe the isolation and the beauty of Angela’s home will help her focus.
But then Angela’s business partner, Scott, arrives to stay at Angela’s home. Scott is sexy but also very mercurial, and according to Angela, he is dealing with alcoholism and mental health issues. Still, Maddy finds herself drawn to him, but then, just as Maddy is about to wrap up her time in Scotland, Scott is found dead at the bottom of a cliff. His death is ruled a suicide, but Maddy doesn’t believe it. To make matters worse, when Maddy returns to London, she thinks she saw Scott one evening. Convinced it is him, Maddy follows the man and opens up a whole new mystery. Who is Angela, really? Even more perplexing, who is this man that looks so much like Scott?
First, I have to give kudos to the author for creating a great sense of place during the book’s first half. The remote estate in the Scottish Highlands serves as the perfect backdrop for act one of the novel and helps generate a sense of isolation and foreboding as the drama unfolds. In the second act, Maddy is back in London, and I will admit, the switch in location was definitely felt, and the tension didn’t feel as palpable.
Bamford’s tribute to Hitchcock’s “Vertigo” is evident in the novel, and there is a decent mystery here, my problem was it felt unnecessarily long, and many times, I felt like there was a lot of information that was repeated – almost as if to say “See – you really can’t trust this person,” or “Remember this mysterious behavior? It’s still happening.” On the one hand, I get that the author wants us to believe that Maddy had spent enough time with Scott that she developed feelings for him, and was also setting up a mystery surrounding Angela, making us not trust her. Honestly, I felt like both of these (and many other) points were established early on, and cutting some of the extraneous scenes would have helped tighten the novel’s pacing.
The characters in the book are where I really struggled. I didn’t necessarily like or dislike anyone. They were just kind of “meh.” Angela’s elusive nature and Scott’s mercurial moods fit their character arcs, but otherwise, they felt pretty one-dimensional. As far as Maddy goes, she was fine as a protagonist, but I also found her to be pretty dense. Obvious clues smacked her in the face several times, and she never questioned them until much later. It got to be very frustrating after a while.
In the end, this had the potential to be a compelling and thought-provoking read, but I found it pretty predictable. There’s a decent mystery, but the clues are so obvious that it kind of takes away the fun. If you like a slow-burn mystery that’s not overly complex, then this one might be for you. If you like a faster pace, good twists, and complex characters, you may want to look elsewhere.
