Book Review: "The Final Episode" by Lori Roy

Do I tend to read thriller after thriller? Yes. Does this foresight mean I am going to stop? Absolutely not. I love a good, original psychological thriller and that means that The Final Episode by Lori Roy should have been right up my street. Complete with a strangely twisted storyline and writing that touches heavily on atmosphere and mystery, this book tries to give us everything. The question therefore is not about originality but it is of whether the book actually succeeds in doing everything it promised to do. I can say that it probably did in most ways...

Jennifer Jones is very excited that her birthday is coming and though her life isn't really that exciting, she understands the gift she's going to get - inherited from the rest of the family. Then there's Francie - a little girl who's gone missing, scaring the crap out of her parents who cannot understand where she has gone or why. The author starts these strange seemingly unrelated stories together, making sure that we understand that there are separate worlds about to converge. The atmosphere is brilliant and the missing girl sends ripples across the story. The girls no longer go out without an adult - most likely not without Jennifer's adoring father - to protect them. All that changes when we learn that Paul Jones, Jennifer's father - is the one who goes to prison in connection with the missing girl.

But if that is true then what does Jennifer know? Francie's mother seems to think that Jennifer knows more than she's letting on. But the reader isn't even sure that Paul Jones is responsible. Not by the way Jennifer is responding to the current narrative. I love the way the writer tells this part of the story as if she is speaking or rather, writing, to her father in prison. It's definitely unconventional but it makes the narrative feel definitive and more realistic. As the two sets of characters converge, we are given tons of false leads and though we have no idea who really did it, that isn't even the most important thing to find out. What we are really learning is all about Jennifer and who she really is.

The novel goes back into the past as we get these 'episodes' of people looking for Francie. We see the mother (Beverley) and father (Robert) go through different emotions with Robert being almost accused and yet, completely broken and Beverley moving between being upset and enraged with those around her. As we get deeper into the book and we are put between these two storylines, we see that there is a definite rage bubbling within Jennifer. We also realise that there is a lot more to this story than is meeting our eyes. Not only are there murders and missing girls, but there is a deep sense of regret that comes from some of the others who are still living. There are people who know a lot more than they are letting on, there are also photographs and videos that seem to tell a story of their own.

I love the way this writer keeps the reader almost guessing. It's not just about guessing the next step, it is about figuring out what happened in the past and who is telling the truth. There are different versions of the truth and one by one, we start to piece together who is really who, what is happening and most of all... who took Francie? and why? Was it really Paul Jones or was it someone else entirely? Apart from that, we still have a bunch of other missing or murdered girls.

All in all, this book was very interesting. There's something about the narrative which is definitely post-modern. The depth this book has is something else entirely. If you enjoy that sort of twisted thriller where self-discovery is part and parcel to the main storyline then this could definitely be the book for you. I would say that there is ample stmosphere to keep me happy in this book too. But because of the fact there's a 1st person narrative, you can feel the philosophies coming out into the storyy as part of something we do not yet know about the main character.