Literary reviews by Tim Love.
Warning: Rather than reviews, these are often notes in preparation for reviews that were never finished, or pleas for help with understanding pieces. See Litref Reviews - a rationale for details.

Saturday, 1 July 2023

"Remember my name" by Sam Blake

An audio book.

Ireland. Cressida Howard is the wife of rich Lawrence (he owns a big company called Ferryman; his twin brother Pierce died 10 years before) and mother of Emily Jane, 17 (she's exploiting an older men online, and uses Tinder). She thinks her husband's unfaithful. Via a friend, Melissa (whose husband's a policeman), she employs Brioni (a computer hacker) to collect evidence. Brioni gets control of the husband's laptop (mail, camera, etc) and discovers that he has employed pretty Nina to get private info about fellow board members. Suddenly, pretty Kate (who manages spas for Lawrence) and Cressida receive poisoned flowers (paid from Lawrence's account), Nina is murdered, and a hacker says that they've got all the details of Ferryman's customers - they're asking for $20 million. On the night of the murder Brioni saw Nina with Lawrence, then Lawrence with a big criminal - McQuade, then she talked to her male friend Alex who'd been picked up that night by Nina and had found her dead body.

Cressida fears that when the company investigates the data breach they'll also discover Brioni's attack, and she, Cressida, might be implicated, meaning that she's lose money in the divorce. Brioni makes a list of suspects and motives for us.

We learn that Lawrence (his PoV - an isolated occurence) had hired McQuade to kill Nina, and that the dead body might not have been Nina's.

Maybe Ackroid, US boss of the brother company Speakeasy, was trying to get rid of Ferryman. Ackroid is invited to the Howard's house. Via the policeman contact we learn that Ackroid has hired Camilla Garcia, an assassin, so Ackroid could be dangerous. Cressida has the house rigged up with spy camera's to collect evidence. At the event Emily Jane exposes Ackroid as the old pervert she's been exploiting. Nina turns up with a gun, shoots at Akroid and escapes.

Camilla had gone to Nina's room to kill her, but Nina had killed Camilla. Kate and Pierce were lovers and had created Ferryman together. She was rich. Pierce had asked Lawrence to look after her.

Loose ends are desperately tidied up. The similes are either rather bland, or questionable (head spinning as if on a plane in turbulence?). "Thoughts going through her head like rapids gathering pace" sound better, but I don't think the water in rapids gathers pace.

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