A Slow Fire Burning by Paula Hawkins

This thriller, my third Paula Hawkins novel, earned <b>4 Stars</b> from me.

<b>SUMMARY</b>
A young man, Daniel, is found dead on his house boat. Miriam, a nosy neighbor finds him and reports it to the police. Miriam also reports seeing a woman leaving the boat. A man, Theo, reports seeing a different woman leaving the scene with blood on her shirt. Theo and Miriam have a past connection, not exactly a positive one. Theo is Daniels estranged ex-uncle and he doesnt have a lot of love for him.

The police end up tracking down Laura, the woman Theo saw leaving Daniels house boat and aggressively questioned her. She admits to having had a fight with Daniel, which got physical, that morning but swears he was alive when she left. As the police get to know more about Laura, they find she has a history of violent outbursts and it becomes increasingly difficult for them to believe her claims of innocence.

Additionally, there is a whole "book inside a book" thing going on. Miriam had a traumatic experience as a young teenager and has written a manuscript of a book about it, but, she claims, a well known author stole her story and published it under his name with a different title. So, in addition to Daniels murder mystery, we have both versions of Miriams story.

The story seems a little complicated and confusing in the beginning as the reader is trying to figure out who all the characters are, how they fit into the story and tries to process the "book inside a book" concept. As the plot progresses, each characters role in the story becomes defined, and things get very interesting.

<b>WHAT I LOVED</b>
The story was set in England and I LOVE my Brit-Lit!

There were some great twists and turns.

I loved all the back stories in everyone. It gave me a deeper understanding of why each of the characters acted the way they did.

<b>WHAT I DIDNT LOVE</b>
I spent about 2/3rds of the book trying desperately to find one single character to like. It finally happened when Irene was introduced.

Most of the characters were pretty horrible people, and they were adults, so their behavior is pretty much an established it pattern, but at the end, the reader was supposed to believe that several of them had grown as people. I didnt find it believable.

<b>OVERALL</b>
It was a fun book to read, it kept me on my toes guessing. I would recommend it for any of my GR friends who are looking for a twisty thriller and are okay with not loving the characters.

Paula Hawkins has done it again. “A Slow Fire Burning,” symbolically living up to its title is exactly that, a slow paced mystery with revenge, lust, and insanity simmering just underneath. The new book is character driven rather than fast action. The characters are those who harbor secrets of their shady pasts and flawed humanities, all of them with a stake in a certain mystery that is told through a series unwinding revelations set in true Agatha Christie style.

The body of Daniel Sutherland is discovered on his houseboat, brutally stabbed to death. This beginning unveils not only the crime but the main suspect, a young bloodied girl seen leaving Daniel’s houseboat in the early morning. Laura Kincaid remains a suspect from this beginning, but the reader knows better. Laura has had an unfortunate life. The roadside victim of a hit and run that left her slightly disabled since childhood, she’s been left with an uncontrollable temperament and hindering physical ailments. She works in a Laundromat, receiving no help from parents who longer want her.

Laura appears first in a strong cast of unforgettable characters. The witness who saw Laura staggering from the scene of the crime was the neighbor in the boat next to Daniel’s. Miriam is a middle-aged busybody, watching and observing the actions of those around her. Miriam once penned a memoir, a book that detailed her teenage experience with a serial killer, the same man who killed her best friend. Miriam was there that night; she bore witness. But Miriam’s book was stolen from her by a bestselling author who wrote it as fiction, a man who lives not far from her.

In the book inside the book fashion, bits of the author’s published work are laid out. The author is Theo Meyerson, Daniel’s uncle by marriage. His wife, Carla, is Daniel’s aunt, the sister of Angela, Daniel’s mother, who dies mysteriously or maybe just tragically early on. Angela was the next door neighbor of Irene, an elderly spitfire who befriends and takes in Laura. The connections between the characters run deep in a sinister spider web framework and Hawkins reveals, little by little, just how intimate they are and why they are connected.

The past is the center focus of the book, and in it contains the tragic death of a young boy, an experience with a serial killer, obsession, and an act of ultimate revenge. Toward the final pages, one unexpected surprise follows another. As always, Hawkins’ flawless writing chronicles a page-turning mystery. It’s been three years since Hawkins’ last book, but “A Slow Fire Burning” proves well worth the wait.

I wanted this to be as good as Girl On A Train but it failed miserably. Not just in comparison to the latter but in general. The title is somewhat appropriate; A slow burn but maybe should be call “A faint quick spark that fails to ignite”. This story was confusing as it bounces around on the timeline, from different characters and from a book reading…

The story has several leading characters that the author personalizes. She really does a nice job humanizing these characters and informing you of their backstory. However, for me this book failed to draw me in, there was no suspenseful hook. You learn quite early the relationship to all those introduced in the first few chapters. Theo and Carla are a divorced couple (who still have a love relationship) but drifted apart earlier after the death of their 3 year old son. Carla’s sister (Angela) has also died from (an apparent accidental fall) in her home and most recently Angela’s son Daniel has been murdered. His murder is the focal point of the book. Who did it? The book also introduces several other players (Miriam, Irene and Laura). There are so many parts that seemed unfinished, unclear or just plain confusing.

In the end this is not a bad novel, just not one I would recommend.

This is a murder. Mystery with many twist. Sometimes a little confusing so best to read it straight through. Great character development. Another good Paula Hawkins book.

So many plot twists but it was easy to keep track of and didnt feel overdone at all. Such a compelling story.

This is the much expected and hyped new novel by Paula Hawkins, the ex-journalist who became known worldwide after her enormously successful debut novel, The Girl on the Train. The book, which became an international bestseller, has been adapted into a feature film by Tate Taylor starring Emily Blunt, Rebecca Ferguson, Haley Bennett, and Justin Theroux. The movie was equally well-received by the audiences around the world as it mirrored the complex narrative structure of the text, relaying the story through several points of view consisting mainly of women whose lives are in turmoil. Hawkins protagonists are broken women who face major personal challenges like alcohol and drug addiction, dysfunctional relationships, and problematic love lives.

In A Slow Fire Burning, the author re-employs the themes and tropes that made her previous novels to stand out from the majority of the genres works. Once again, the reader encounters a group of troubled women whose lives become interlocked after a gruesome murder takes place in a narrowboat moored in the canal. Hawkins emphasizes on the protagonists emotional state and their innermost thoughts that are expressed vividly on page. She also imparts their background stories in a slow, deliberate manner allowing the reader to digest and fully comprehend the tangled relationships between them. As the title suggests, this is a slow-burning psychological thriller that rewards the patient reader and its allure lies in the authors well-crafted characterization and absorbing main storyline.

Daniel Sutherland gets stabbed to death in his own boat and the prime suspect is none other than Laura, a young woman with a history of mental illness and family troubles. Laura is presumably the last person who saw Daniel alive and she has also been seen walking covered in blood on the day of the murder. Lauras bizarre, disinhibited behavior makes things worse for her as the detectives investigating the case become convinced that she is the culprit. Daniels neighbor, Miriam, is an unimpressive, middle-aged woman who carries a dark secret from her past and also the individual who discovers his body. Miriam finds Lauras key in the crime scene and pockets it without informing the authorities. It is evident that she has a plan, but the reader is kept in the dark regarding her true intentions.

Carla Myers is Daniels aunt, sister of his mother, Angela, and she is devastated to hear the news of her nephews death. Carla and Angela shared a strained a strained relationship ever after Carlas three-year-old son tragic demise in Angelas house fifteen years ago. Carla and her husband, Theo, blamed Angela for neglect that led to their offsprings fall to death and both of them have been unable to forgive her ever since. Angela, who was at the time struggling with her alcoholism, was also found dead a few weeks before Daniels murder in a suspicious domestic accident. Was it really an accident or was there foul play involved?

Daniels and Angelas deaths constitute the novels big mysteries, but there are also sub-plots that are equally puzzling and gripping. As the story unravels, the reader has the time to speculate about the possible culprit, though each time we have to adjust our theories according to the new standards imposed by the new information and -many-plot twists. Unlike The Girl on the Train, this time the narration is linear with some interjected fragments where we read snippets of Theos popular crime novel, titled "The One Who Got Away". The importance of those parts becomes obvious only in the final pages of the novel.

Overall, I found A Slow Fire Burning to be easy-to-read and highly entertaining, though, on the negative side, I was expecting something more from the finale. Nevertheless, it is a book that in all probability will be chosen to be adapted into another film as it has a cinematic touch having to do mainly with the well-realized characters and fast tempo in which it unfolds. Personally, I liked The Girl on the Train more, perhaps because of my preference in non-conventional narrative styles. Anyway, it is an enjoyable read and you wont regret buying it, especially if you are a fan of the novels written by Gillian Flynn and Liane Moriarty. I will certainly keep my eyes open from future releases by Paula Hawkins as she is a daring crime writer possessing an in-depth knowledge of the female psychology.

Purchased book for reading in my spare time

Reading the new novel by Paula Hawkins, “A Slow Fire Burning” was a major surprise, not because her “The Girl In The Train” was so good, but because her last novel, “Into The Water”, was so disappointing. It lost its way halfway through and its ending was a muddle.
The latter work made it seem like the former was a fluke. Well, great news. Paula Hawkins has bounced back with a fiendishly clever murder mystery with an ending I never saw coming.
It’s a great story. A young man is found stabbed to death, throat slashed, on the run down boat where he’d been living. The prime suspect is the young woman who’d left him hours earlier. But there are several stories going on at once here. There’s the young man’s aunt, who’s just recently lost her sister, the boy’s mother. There’s the busybody 2 boats away who’s found him. There’s the man that woman has accused of plagiarism, (excerpts from his novel are scattered throughout the book). There’s the elderly woman who lives next door to the the house where the sister had lived and may not be what she seems.
The genius stroke here is instead of one unreliable narrator, there are five. Five dissimilar stories that don’t seem to connect. Until they do. Old grudges. Old crimes. And one massive red herring in the form of one of the narrators.
It’s so wonderful to find Paula Hawkins at the top of her game here, after losing her narrative grip on her previous novel. “A Slow Fire Burning” fulfills the promise of “The Girl On The Train”, and then, makes us realize “Into The Water” was the fluke. This one is the real deal.

This is my second Paula Hawkins book, first being Girl on a Train. Hawkins is a great writer, and her character development is one of the best. This book that element is definitely there. You know each character and Im sure you will build an opinion of each one like I did. Whereas Girl on a Train was a serious psychological thriller, this was as the title states a slow burn. It was more of a whodunit which maybe is her actual genre, Im not sure. Girl on the Train was a huge hit, so I assume psychological thrillers was her thing. This is not that. She did a really good job with it. I wouldnt say Agatha Christie but, in a whodunit, you really need to unearth the characters and she did that. They all have a backstory, and they all are viable suspects. I know she is getting some bad reviews and I think that is unwarranted. It is a good book and as long as you know what youre getting into youll enjoy the burn.

Everybody ends up being a suspect at some point in this story. In the end there are still a few unanswered questions. A very good mystery.