Έρωτας μέχρι θανάτου

by Lisa Unger, Χρήστος Καψάλης (Translator)

Η Ίζαμπελ και ο Μάρκους είναι το τέλειο ζευγάρι. Εκείνη είναι διάσημη μυθιστοριογράφος· εκείνος πετυχημένος προγραμματιστής ηλεκτρονικών παιχνιδιών. Είναι παντρεμένοι εδώ και πέντε χρόνια και ακόμη ερωτευμένοι.

Ένα πρωί, ο Μάρκους της λέει ότι την αγαπάει, φεύγει για τη δουλειά και... εξαφανίζεται. Ύστερα από επανειλημμένες προσπάθειες, η Ίζαμπελ τον βρίσκει στο τηλέφωνο και προλαβαίνει να ακούσει μια κραυγή τρόμου. Η αστυνομία δεν μπορεί να κάνει τίποτε. Η Ίζαμπελ, απελπισμένη, τρέχει στο γραφείο του Μάρκους όπου έχουν εισβάλει πράκτορες του FBI. Μαθαίνει ότι όλοι οι συνεργάτες του είναι νεκροί. Και στη συνέχεια, μαθαίνει από την αστυνομία ότι και ο ίδιος ο Μάρκους είναι νεκρός. Για την ακρίβεια, είναι νεκρός εδώ και πολλά χρόνια...

Μια αγωνιώδης περιπέτεια που οδηγεί τον αναγνώστη από τις λαμπερές λεωφόρους της Νέας Υόρκης στους λασπωμένους δρόμους της Πράγας, καθώς η Ίζαμεπλ προσπαθεί να δώσει απάντηση σ’ ένα ανατριχιαστικό ερώτημα: κι αν δε γνώρισε ποτέ στην πραγματικότητα τον άντρα που παντρεύτηκε;

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Fiction, Suspense, Mystery Thriller, Crime, Audiobook

464 pages, Paperback

First published June 6, 2008

About the author

Lisa Unger is the New York Times and internationally bestselling author of twenty-three novels, including her upcoming release SERVED HIM RIGHT (March, 2026). With books published in thirty-three languages and millions of copies sold worldwide, she is regarded as a master of suspense.

Unger’s critically acclaimed novels have been featured on “Best Book” lists from the Today show, Good Morning America, Entertainment Weekly, People, Amazon, Goodreads, L.A. Times, The Boston Globe, Sun Sentinel, Tampa Bay Times, and many others. She has been nominated for, or won, numerous awards including the Strand Critics, Audie, Hammett, Macavity, ITW Thriller, and Goodreads Choice. In 2019, she received two Edgar Award nominations in the same year, an honor held by only a few authors including Agatha Christie. Her short fiction has been anthologized in The Best American Mystery and Suspense, and her non-fiction has appeared in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Travel+Leisure. Lisa is the current co-President of the International Thriller Writers organization. She lives on the west coast of Florida with her family.

Reviews

[A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars



I know I sound like a parrot but but I'm gonna repeat it anyway: Lisa Unger does some mean characterization. Her characters are always multidimensional and complex - all of them, even secondary characters. Her stories are intriguing, multi-layered, unpredictable and unique.

I can understand why her books don't work for some - a lot of pages and internal dialogue, multiple points of view, flashbacks, parallel plots...

I'm not sure why, but I don't have a problem with all that in her books. They are too engaging for me to care.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wouldn't rave about it but it held my interest for the duration.

Three stars.

[Kortessa Giachanatzi · Rating 2 out of 5]

I really wanted to like this book a lot! I had great expectations! But unfortunately I was not surprised at all.
We follow a woman throught the pursuit of her husband who mysteriously disappears... Through that journey she finds out the real life she was leaving in all those years, and everything collapses.. Nothing so special I would say.
What I liked was the first half of the book and the questions without answer that were raised. That part I enjoyed.
But I did not enjoy the ending and the solution to the whole mystery at all. Too flat I guess.
But everything is objective so.......

[Mandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book started out so slow for me that I thought I wouldn't be able to finish it. I felt so horrible for Isabel and wanted her to have closure and redemption. Unger has a way of pulling the reader into the pages and within her words gets the characters into your heart and mind. I was happy that Isabel had her "why" answered to a degree. Would recommend this to a friend! Unger never disappoints her readers! Will be picking up more of her books!

P.S. I hated the husband. Big time.

[Vaso · Rating 4 out of 5]

Πόσο γνωρίζεις τελικά τον άνθρωπο που είσαι μαζι του; Ένα εκπληκτικό βιβλίο, που διαβάζεται απνευστί... Συγχαρητήρια στις εκδόσεις Ψυχογιός που επιλέγουν να εκδώσουν τέτοια βιβλία....

[Gina · Rating 1 out of 5]

Isabel is a famous writer married to a successful video game developer, Marcus Raine. Their lives seem perfect until one day Marcus doesn't come home. This begins a mixing bowl of betrayal, affairs, suicides, the Albanian mob, stolen identity, stolen money, and a whole lot of other WTF. I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. The plot intrigued me and continued to do so from start to finish. Unfortunately, the constant change in voice and jump between present day and flashbacks left me at times dazed and confused. (And did anyone else notice how some of the flashbacks at the beginning didn't seem to accurately portray some of the events at the end?) In addition, I hated all the characters with the exception of the preteen niece and nephew and stepfather Fred. Everyone, and I mean everyone, is lying about something and then trying to justify those lies in context of past unhappiness versus present happiness. This leads to some serious problems with character development as each character is constantly acting against type. I would like to think the author did this on purpose to make some comment on adults (in a general sense) inability to ever be happy, but I'm not so sure it wasn't just bad writing. Isabel is the best/worst example of this as she insists she must find her "husband" and demand answers and her money back. Yet a huge part of the reason she is in this mess is that she routinely made bad decisions, against the advice of everyone, that allowed her to be in her current position. She is able to investigate and find Marcus halfway around the world in just a few days time while still making horrible decisions but insisting that it is "who she is?" I'm never able to join the two sides to her personality into a cohesive character. The TSTL moments are almost too numerous to count for her as well as several other characters. This is my first book by Lisa Unger, and I'm not sure I'll seek out another.

[L.E. Fidler · Rating 2 out of 5]

am i the only one who hates it when an author creates a protagonist who is an author??? it just feels like such a blatant cop out to me.

lisa unger has a knack for addictive popcorny mindrot. she creates ludicrous plots, usually involving a heroine with severe trust issues who blindly falls for the wrong guy and then who must suffer the consequences of once more misplacing that hard-earned trust. sigh. here, it's isabel and she's fallen for a man masquerading as another man, a man he killed. her life goes all topsy-turvy when he disappears, taking all her money with him. then, she goes to prague to find him but he has a gun and ties to the albanian mob, so she ends up almost dead like seventeen times. fun!

let's get down to it.

the brass tacks:

1. unger always starts of with a creepy, cryptic snippet to lure you in. it works, to some degree.
2. the characters are not all vile and despicable, even if the protagonist is sort of insufferable.
3. the first half of the book flies...the end is rough, but, well, that's true of most of unger's oeuvre

the brass knuckles:

1. too many character voices to contend with and a far too convoluted plot to deal with any of them effectively. here, we have the voices of isabel, marcus, grady, and linda as well as sufficient minor characters to cast a small production of "the sound of music". the plot is labyrinthine but not substantial enough to handle half of these characters. imagine the literary equivalent of watching a soap opera, if you will. the subplots ranged from spousal infidelity, two suicides, a stalker, a czech prostitute or two, blackmail, a former one-night-stand with unresolved emotions, a miscarriage...it goes on and on - the real plot got lost in the process.
2. the protagonist - gah. isabel got on my nerves. her "need to know" or need to "fit the pieces together" was just insolent, selfish, and stupid. she was willing to sacrifice her life, her family, her freedom, and her finances for a man who cared only enough to steal her entire fortune. pathetic.
3. the end. what a catastrophe. unger never really explains much about why isabel's husband does what he does and the denouement was rapid, anticlimactic, and dissatisfying. what a waste.

i doubt i'll read another unger book, unless i'm feeling nostalgic for some mediocre writing, constipated thinking, and frustrating female protagonists. but you never know. stranger things have happened.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

2,5 αστεράκια, οπότε βάζω 3 γιατί είμαι large και είναι και γιορτές!

Δυστυχώς περίμενα περισσότερα από το βιβλίο. Η περίληψη μου είχε κινήσει το ενδιαφέρον να το διαβάσω, ανυπομονούσα μάλιστα να μάθω πού έχει εξαφανιστεί ο Μάρκους και ποιος τον έχει αντικαταστήσει..

Εντάξει, θα ήταν σίγουρα χειρότερα αν είχαν τελικά απαγάγει το Μάρκους εξωγήινοι και η Ίζαμπελ ζούσε με ένα ανδροειδές που καταγράφει τη γήινη ζωή, αλλά αυτό που τελικά ήταν... κάνει την "Αρπαγή 3" να φαίνεται ταινιάρα (by the way: παραμείνετε στην Αρπαγή 1). Μια ιστορία που ... οκ δεν λέω ότι τόσο εξτρίμ που δεν θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει, αλλά.... εντάξει.... ας ανάψει ένα κερί ίσα με το μπόι της η Ίζαμπελ που κατάφερε να επιβιώσει και δεν χρειάζεται κάτι άλλο! Αρκετή αφέλεια και εγωισμός ρε παιδί μου... με τέτοιο μουλάρωμα και όταν είσαι ένα κορίτσι του Μανχάταν συνήθως σε καθαρίζουν με συνοπτικές διαδικασίες. Είχε την αγωνία του πάντως!

Για να μας τη σπάσει με τις ιστορίες των γύρω, οι οποίοι φέρονται ως ώριμοι ενήλικες που ξέρουν τι θέλουν και πώς να το πετύχουν (ΝΟΤ), οι συνέπειες της μ@λ@κί@ς που τους δέρνει εν τω μεταξύ πρέπει να εμφανιστούν τώρα, που ο κόσμος καίγεται με ένα πραγματικά σοβαρό θέμα. Βάλε και κάτι ψυχολογικά από μια απώλεια που ποτέ δεν ξεπέρασαν.... ουφ... και πολλή φιλοσοφία ρε αδερφέ.. ατάκες τύπου David Avramidis official (τι κάνει αυτός ρε παιδιά, καιρό έχω να ακούσω νέα του από re-post), εντάξει, κάποια είναι καλά πάντως!

Θα ήταν ένα ιδανικό βιβλίο για κάποιον που δεν είναι εξοικειωμένος με αντίστοιχα έργα (σαφώς προτιμήστε το κορίτσι του τρένου ή gillian flynn), κατά προτίμηση γυναίκα (για να αντέχει την περιττή φλυαρία) και ιδανικό για παραλίες ή μεγάλα ταξίδια με ΜΜΜ. Είναι και σε pocket edition, οπότε κουβαλιέται εύκολα...

Πέρα όμως από όσα του έσουρα ένα επίπεδο το έχει - ένα έτσι; μην το παρακάνουμε!!!

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Contains spoilers!!!!

Okay, to start with, normally when you read a book you like the main character or at least understand him/her. I very much disliked Isabelle. Her every decision was stupid, naive and completely selfish. She puts her family in jeopardy just because she wants to know why? I could understand, disagree with but understand her putting herself in jeopardy, but to risk her family?? Even after her stepfather is almost killed, it doesn't stop her. Her own husband, her love, points a gun in her face and will easily pull the trigger yet she still chases after him? Then after, he does follow through and shoot her with absolutely no remorse and yet she still follows him asking why?

It was thoughtful writing and brought up good points with good side stories, but I still dislike her and think she doesn't deserve happiness.

[Pat K · Rating 5 out of 5]

You know those books where you are hooked from the first sentence? This is one of those books. I fast paced story with rich plot and characterisations.

[Elizabeth Scott · Rating 5 out of 5]

I admit, I went into this one with some trepidation--I'm not a huge fan of books about authors (unless the author in question is in academia--go figure!)--but I really enjoyed this.

Isabel Raine has breakfast with her husband, Marcus, and then he never comes home. When she tries to find out what happened to him, she finds out that Marcus never existed. That, and he's taken everything--all of the money she's made, and the company he was so proud of turns out to have been nothing but a way to con people (like Isabel's brother-in-law) out of money.

Not only does Marcus not exist, the man he turns out to be is a very dangerous one.

But Isabel is pissed, which I really liked--all of the female characters were very tough, and both Isabel and her sister were prone to making really bad choices--but they know when to back down, and when to stand up for themselves.

What really made the book, for me was how well Lisa Unger managed to flesh out "Marcus"--who doesn't talk much during the book, and only get a small amount of internal character time--via other people's thoughts/memories/interactions with him. I also thought all the secondary characters were really strong--I could practically see them, and I wanted to know more about all of them, which--well, how often does that happens for every secondary character in a book?

If you don't mind pretty intense reads (there is a lot of killing in this book) or complicated characters, this is a fast-moving, interesting thriller. (And bonus! I enjoyed Isabel's thoughts about writing, which I didn't expect at all!)

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a page turner for the most part, and I did enjoy a lot of it. However, the things that I didn't like really bugged me and is the reason that I couldn't rate it higher. Several of the characters made such horrible, reckless and stupid decisions that it seems highly improbable that it would end as well as it did for them. The main character had me so annoyed, irritated and frustrated with her actions that I didn't want to pick the book back up at times. I want to really like the main character. I can seriously dislike or even hate another character in a book (in fact, I kind of enjoy that), but not the main character. I really want to root for them.

[Lisa Kay · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★★✩ Needed this book to fulfill an A-Z Author challenge and I'm glad I stumbled across it. Interesting thriller. Lots of adultery (which is not my thing). Great narration by Ann Marie Lee; I’ll definitely listen to another of her books and read or listen to another of Lisa Unger's books.

[Susan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I immensely disliked this book. OK, I actively hated this book. I hated the characters, the plot, the writing, everything about it. I admit it, I only got through it to help me finish a reading challenge (this one was literally the only one on my TRB list with an author whose last name starts with U), otherwise I would have dumped it less than 20% in. Even still, I read enough to feel OK counting it for the challenge, and skimmed most of it after that.

I hated Isabel. As other reviewers have mentioned, she is annoying, mentioning every second page or so that she is an author. I also started hating Unger. Really, I dislike it immensely when an author thinks that I, as a reader, am too stupid to remember the simplest of details over more than a few pages, and the whole 'I am an author' schtick was not the only time Unger hits the reader over the head with repetition about a particular facet of the book's characters or plot points.

On a side note, really Isabel, if you are an author then maybe somewhere along the way you ought to have picked up some ability with the most basic of grammar points. There is a thing called an adverb. You and Unger both have access to a computer. Look it up. Use the information you find. Even just that basic knowledge would have improved the reading of this book.

But, I digress, though I feel it is fair since most of this book is a series of digressions. A point which does bring me to my next point. I regularly yelled at the book 'No! Isabel detaching in that way does not make you 'an author' it makes you sociopath!''. Seriously, multiple times during the book she is held a gunpoint. Does she feel afraid, or even upset? No, 'she is an author' so 'detaches and observes the details in a way that others cannot.' Except really, she did not stop to observe details, instead she waxed nostalgic and philosophical about her life on one of the book's many, many digressions. Once, actually more than once, while being held at gunpoint with a credible belief that the other person(s) really would kill her she worried about her appearance (clothing, hair, etc.). Isabel's were not the only digressions. It seemed that virtually any plot point was reason to digress but any or all of the characters involved. I am someone who often enjoys a good tangent but in this book the digressions were more than the plot and often served no real purpose other than to let the reader know how special Isabel is or to add details for forced symbolism with another plot point (and often another digression) in the book.

Touching back on the detachment Isabel has while at gunpoint, these are not the only places where she displays inappropriate affect. Throughout the book, Isabel speaks of emotions that she would, could, or should be feeling, or those that she knows 'lessor mortals' would be feeling but she does not. These moments are inevitably followed by a 'but...' 'But I am an author' was the most common refrain. But other 'buts...' were also included 'but I was too tired...' and so on. To me, it seems like Isabel continuously knew which emotions would be appropriate in a given situation but was incapable of actually feeling those emotions. Again I say, 'no Isabel having inappropriate affect does not make you an author, it waves a HUGE red flag that you are most likely a sociopath'. This fact is reinforced when the sentences 'I know normal people would do x, but I do not because I am special' are found regularly in the person's view of themselves; that line is straight out of the sociopath's play book and peppered Isabel's descriptions of herself throughout the book.

At some point, I also started wondering about Unger herself. Because it was not just Isabel who would/could/should be feelings emotions but... Multiple times in the third-person-narrative sections other characters also would/could/should have been feeling emotions but... And at times when actual emotions were mentioned in the appropriate places, they were literally mentioned with no depth or understanding followed almost immediately by a 'look a bird!' type of sentence that changed the subject of focus away from the feelings and directing the reader to look elsewhere. Somewhere along the way I started to believe that Unger herself has little, if any, understanding of basic human emotions and feelings. Again, it was as if Unger knew which emotions would be appropriate in a situation but could not write about them because Unger seems to not understand the feeling of these emotions. The only ones that got any play seemed to be anger and occasionally fear (two emotions sociopaths can feel). Again, inappropriate affect is much more likely about 'being a sociopath' than 'being an author'.

Aside from all of that. The plot, while promising, ended up being fairly ridiculous. Unger threw in everything except the kitchen sink - scratch that, I think that the sink made an appearance too. Albanian mobsters; double-crosses, triple-crosses, and quadrupole-crosses; suicides and murders; mirroring of present events over past ones in very forced 'symbolic moments' which again hit the reader over the head; Czech orphanages and the fall of communism; and I do not know what else as I had ultimately lost interest and started skimming the book and stopping to retain to much of what I did skim.

I know other reviewers have noted that this book was a disappointment to them as they enjoyed Unger's other books. For me, this is the only one of Unger's books that I have read, and the only one that I will ever read. UGH!

[Effie Saxioni · Rating 2 out of 5]

Δεν ξέρω αν φταίει που δεν το διάβασα όταν βγήκε και ωστόσο μεσολάβησαν βιβλιάρες, πάντως από μένα είναι όχι, αν το συμπεριλάβουμε στα ψυχολογικά θρίλερ- όπως διατείνεται πως είναι.
Χαλαρό ανάγνωσμα με κάποιες βίαιες σκηνές του "δημοτικού",μέχρι εκεί.

[Jeanette (Ms. Feisty) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three-point-five stars

What if you discovered that you knew nothing about the person you were married to? Creepy stuff. It would seem far-fetched, except that I've read several of Ann Rule's true crime stories about women who married dangerous men. These men fabricated life stories for themselves and the women fell for it, to their detriment. The main character in this book, Isabel Raines, is like those women. She's relatively happily married, wealthy, and has a successful career as a novelist. But like many of us women, she didn't pay attention to the warning signs where her heart was concerned. Her entire life unravels in the space of one day when her husband Marcus disappears. She's a stubborn girl who puts herself in harm's way to discover what happened to Marcus and find out who he really was.

Lisa Unger's thrillers have a lot in common with Harlan Coben's stand-alone novels, but with the addition of the feminine motivations and emotional baggage. And some "girly-girl" things thrown in just for fun. I loved the description of Manolo Blahniks: "But this is barely even a shoe! It's like a tongue depressor with some dental floss tied around it."

p.s. I want Jack for my boyfriend, but he is definitely TGTBT!

[Madison Warner Fairbanks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Die For You by Lisa Unger
Mystery, thriller.
Isabel Raine has been happy married for years and a successful author. She’s content with her life. Out of the blue, her husband disappears, a group impersonating the FBI trashes her husbands office and their home, and Isabel is told by the police, the man she supposedly married, simply doesn’t exist.
Years. She was married for years, and yet no one knows who he is. The police weren’t willing to look for her husband until three people are killed in the office raid. Isabel decides to take find him herself. She’s a mystery writer! She has the skills, if not the real life experience.
She didn’t bargain for the reality of the danger. Not everyone wants to be found.

Suspenseful crime drama with Isabel using her analytic skills and personal knowledge of the man she lived and traveled with for years to track down clues. Why and how was she fooled so successfully? New York to Prague. A non stop dangerous journey that will leave you breathless. My thoughts were “go home and forget him” and “no way, would I be going into that building”. I’m an armchair reader. Definitely not a detective, nor a danger seeker.

This was published in 2008. I’m sure technology is drastically different but I still found it relevant and readable.

[Laura Bradford · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great read!

[Keri Neal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Although this book had its moments, I really had a hard time getting into it. I actually had to force myself to finish it :)

The writing itself was smooth, and the story was definitely unique. But I just couldn't identify with ANY of the characters. I felt myself withdrawing from the book because the characters would do things that would annoy me.

For instance, Isabel's husband gave her many, MANY clues throughout their marriage that things were very wrong, and yet she chose to not only ignore them, but blatantly telling herself that everything was ok. And even after he disappears, she still manages to completely self destruct. I wish one of the other characters would have strapped her down and drugged her for her own good :)

Then there was Linda and Erik. Although I'm sure there are some families out there like there's, I just couldn't relate. They were way too forgiving about each other's indiscretions. And the thing with Ben being a crazy stalker, and the way his story ends... just made me want to scream.

I think this would have been a 5 star book if not for the characters themselves. But because a character's presence is so important to a book for me, I gave it 2 stars.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm gradually finding and reading all books by Lisa Unger. This one first came out in 2009.

Isabel thinks back on the serenity of the last breakfast with husband Marcus. Before he didn't come home that night. Before she got a phone call and heard the screams.

The next day FBI agents raid Marcus's gaming business while Isabel is there looking for him. She's hit over the head and their apartment is trashed. Since she's a fiction writer, I can't see why someone is doing this because of something she's done, so at this point, I have to assume Marcus has been into something nefarious.

I was drawn into this story. I liked the way Isabel responded to her situation and I also cared about her sister LInda's marital woes. The action is paced well and kept me turning the pages.

An observation - - I read about 250 books a year and don't see too many spelling/editing errors so good job to all you editors! Two errors jumped out at me as I was reading this book. Once, "site" was used where "sight" was correct. In another spot, "bare" was used and it should have been "bear". I found this doubly strange because the book I have is a hardback from the library.

[Janine · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.85 Successful writer gets conned and marries the wrong guy. Yes she should have reacted differently when there were issues but she didn't. I always like Lisa Unger's views on life and current trends. A few credibility issues but worth the time. Ann Marie Lee is an excellent narrator of this book.

[Krystal · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly this was bland and uneventful for the most part - happy to be done. Definitely should have DNF'd it halfway through. This took way longer to read than it should have.

Full review to come

[Biana · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting tale of a deception that shook our character's entire world...and what she did about it. I'm not giving the full stars simply because the ending was a little too Hollywood.

[Demetra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Η περίληψη του βιβλίου μου κίνησε ιδιαίτερα το ενδιαφέρον για το συγκεκριμένο βιβλίο. Διαβάζοντάς το όμως δεν ενθουσιάστηκα όσο περίμενα. Αποτελεί ένα καλό και ξεκούραστο ανάγνωσμα με δυνατούς χαρακτήρες και μια ενδιαφέρουσα πλοκή, καθώς θίγονται ποικίλα θέματα όπως η φτώχεια, οι ανθρώπινες σχέσεις, η φιλοδοξία. Η συγγραφέας έκανε αναδρομές στο παρελθόν, τις περισσότερες φορές σε σημεία που διακόπτει την αφήγηση των γεγονότων, αποσυντονίζοντας έτσι τον αναγνώστη και κάνοντας την ανάγνωση πολλές φορές κουραστική. Θεωρώ πως η ύπαρξη όχι τόσων πολλών flashbacks θα έδινε πιο γρήγορη και ευχάριστη ροή στο διάβασμα του.
Ένα μέτριο βιβλίο που στις πρώτες σελίδες με αιχμαλώτισε αλλά στην πορεία του με έχασε.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

"God, Marc. Where are you?" I answered, so angry, so relieved, so dying to hear that voice offering me a reason for this, something I could buy: Come get me at the hospital, Isabel. I was mugged, hit over the head, just regained consciousness. Don't cry. I'm okay.
But there was only a crackling on the line, the faint, distant moaning of some kind of horn or siren. Then voices, muffled, both male, tones angry, volume rising and falling, words impossible to understand.
"Marc!" I yelled.
Then there was screaming, a terrible keening. A horrible, primal wail that connected with every nerve ending in my body, causing me to cry out. "Marc! Marcus!"
But the screaming just went on, rocketing through my nervous system, until the line went suddenly dead.



~~Prague, cultural center of the Czech Republic, shines in the late afternoon light. What would you do if your spouse disappeared, and then you discovered that everything you thought you knew about them was a lie? Isabel Raine is sent down that horrible rabbit hole when her husband leaves their New York City townhome one morning, and then doesn't return. A published author, she's always prided herself on taking notice of all the subtle details in the people and places around her. But she's blindsided by her husband. Her early sleuth work at her husband's office puts her front and center of a raid by skilled fighters posing as FBI. She wakes up in the emergency room with a nasty head injury. Isabel is counseled by friends and family to rest, recover, and let the professionals find her husband. But she can't sit back in the ruins of her life and do nothing. So she chases after him, desperate to know why. The trail of carnage leads her to Prague. Will she live long enough to find the answers she so desperately seek?

First two sentences: A light snow falls, slowly coating the deep-red rooftops of Prague. I look up into a chill gunmetal sky as the gray stones beneath me are already disappearing under a blanket of white.

Vital statistics: Author's home: Born in Hartford, Connecticut, but grew up in Holland, England.
Year written: 2009
Length: 347 pages
Setting: present day New York City and Prague
Genre: nail-biting, suspenseful thriller
Read if: You can tolerate a mentally unhinged protagonist, and enjoy thrillers with excellent prose

My two cents: Reviews are incredibly bipolar for this novel. Those who hate it seem to have difficulty buying Isabel's character and /or are frustrated by her. But those who were a teenager when they lost a parent to suicide will understand the all-consuming anger and emptiness that follows. They understand the constant gnawing question "WHY?" So Isabel is predisposed to act irrationally when she yet again faces betrayal by someone she should be able to trust completely. Yet again she is left wondering why. Add a blow to the head resulting in severe concussion, and it's no wonder she begins to act mentally unhinged. The line between the fictional stories in her head and the reality surrounding her begins to blur. I do agree with other reviewers that the level of drama among supporting cast members tipped the scale towards soap opera territory a bit. But Unger still gets points for a tight story arc, and fast paced action that keeps the pages turning. And her prose is a pleasure to read. Given 4 stars or a rating of "Excellent." Recommended as a library checkout or book-sale grab.

Other favorite quotes (there are many): Marcus could feel the life he'd been living shifting, fading. With every city block they passed, he left a gauzy sliver of himself behind. The strand that connected him to Isabel, he felt it pull taut and then snap. It caused him a pointed and intense physical pain in the center of his chest. But he took comfort in a strange thought: The man she would grieve and come to hate, the one she would not be able to forgive, had never existed in the first place.

~~She was all action, no dwelling on mistakes or wasting time second-guessing. She just worked in the present tense. He'd read somewhere that this quality, the ability to operate in the framework of how things are, not how you wish they were or think they should be, was the factor that separated those who survived extreme circumstances from those who didn't.

~~Suicide marks you in a way that no other tragedy does--especially the suicide of a parent. And maybe the worst part about the suffering that follows is that no one ever discusses it. People feel angry when they think about suicide, the coward's way out. As if all there is to life is the bravery to soldier on. There's blame for the deceased who chose to throw away something to which other people desperately cling, and even for the family he left behind.

~~I remembered a particular feeling I had in the year after my father's death. It was a strange lightness, a drifting feeling. Zero gravity. I understood that everything that once seemed solid and immovable might just float away. And that this was a truth of life, not an illusion in the grieving mind of a child. Everything that is hard and heavy in your world is made of billions of molecules in constant motion offering the illusion of permanence. But it all tends toward breaking down and falling away. Somethings just go more quickly, more surprisingly, than others.

~~"Because I love him, Detective."
"And love forgives." He sounded sarcastic, bitter.
"Love accepts , moves forward. Maybe forgiveness comes in time."

~~Fred told me later that it was therapy for him to restore that old house. There were a lot of things my father left behind that he couldn't heal, places in the other man's wake where he wasn't wanted. But that house responded to his ministration, let him patch and repair its broken places. Like my mother's memorial garden, it didn't chafe with the attention, didn't struggle, rebuff, or withdraw.

~~"I mean, look at them," she said, pointing to Trevor, who toddled about in his diaper, putting random large, colorful objects in his mouth. "We were all that. Every rude jackass on the street or maniac killer or corrupt politician was walking around in someone's living room with a wet diaper, chewing on rubber keys or something. When you understand that, it's so much easier to be forgiving than it is to be angry all the time."

~~"You're telling me you don't know the difference between fact and fiction." His eyes rested accusingly on the cut he'd just bandaged, as if this might be the culprit responsible for my mental instability.
"Not at the moment."

~~The foolish things we do in the wake of lost love. How angry we are, how desperate when it's snatched from us, as though we had some right to have and hold it forever. We don't see love as an organic thing that might fade and die like flowers in a vase. We compare it to minerals and gems, things that last unchanging through time. When love dies we see it as something precious, solid, owned, that was stolen from us. We chase it, beg for its return, revenge its loss, try to steal it back. We don't imagine that it could fade like vapor, that it was just a moment that has passed as life itself will.

~~It's the essence, the energy of character and action that moves me. I don't want to tell how the vase found its way to the ground. Was it dropped? Was it thrown? I just want to show the shards, glistening and sharp, on the marble floor. Because that's life. We don't always act out of logic. Things can't always be explained. Sometimes we don't know how the vase got there, just that it has shattered, irreparably.

~~She'd not been able to keep her father from leaving her. But she could hold her family together now; she could forgive them all, even herself.

~~The Greek philosopher Heracleitus believed that the universe was in a constant state of flux, that the only permanent condition was change. He said, "No man ever steps in the same river twice, for its not the same river and he's not the same man." And I believe this to be true. But I also believe that some things don't pass over us like a rushing river, they pass through us. They leave us altered from the inside out and the river becomes a stagnant pool where we languish, our development halted by an inability to climb from the muck of it.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was a morning just like any other for Isabel Raine as she kissed her loving husband, Marcus goodbye as he leaves for work. What Isabel didn't know that morning was Marcus wouldn't return home that night from work. All of Isabel's calls go unanswered even the messages she leaves at his office. Then she gets a call from his phone, but all she can hear is a mans distraught voice. She phones the police, but they show no interest.

Isabel becomes more distressed and she begins to panic and rushes over to his office. It's there she discovers the FBI in the middle of a raid. Hours later Isobel wakes in a hospital bed with severe concussion. A homicide detective waits patiently at her bedside waiting to interview her about Marcus.

As time passes, Isobel is left questioning what happened to her husband and will he ever be found. This is the first book I've read by Lisa Unger which I did enjoy, but I expected to enjoy it a bit more than I did. In saying that I will continue to read more books by this author.

[Mystica · Rating 5 out of 5]

Looking at Marcus and Isabel you'd think they had it all. Love, riches, happiness, good careers and a bright future. No one knew that it was a carefully built facade at least by one of them and that the bubble would burst and how.



Marcus kisses his wife and leaves for work. It is the last time she would see him as she knew him and her nightmare begins. Missing from work, he does not return home, his movements cannot be accounted for and then the assaults begin. First the office is trashed, three innocent staff killed and Isabel is badly injured. Then the apartment is trashed and it looks very personal the way the damage is inflicted. All her accounts are wiped out and Isabel finds that the man she loved and married is definitely not the person the Police are seeking. Going back to his Czech roots involving mafia, crime, corruption and betrayal of every kind Marcus is the very scum of the earth betraying at every turn not just women who fell in love with him but also his own family.



Told by alternate characters and then going back to Isabel as a narrator the story holds your interest and unwinds slowly showing how cleverly and seemingly so very easily a person can impersonate or rather take over a character of another person and then live out a lie with clever, meticulous planning.



The damage left behind by the calculated actions of Marcus is immense. One feels for his victims

especially Isabel as she is the only survivor of his demonic plans. You only hope she will recover and learn to live again.

[Debbie Spurgeon · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book had about 13 plots/sub-plots and not a single one of them was interesting. There were also around 42 different characters, and you would think at least one of them would be likable. But you would be wrong. There are so many random secondary and tertiary characters. Do we really care about the detective’s wife who is completely irrelevant to the main plot? Or the husband’s first girlfriend? Or the stepdad with all his weird life advice? Why do we hear sooo much about the dead dad and not enough about the living characters? Why is this dumb woman chasing her husband to another country? I think listening to this as an audiobook made it a thousand times worse. The accents were atrocious. The main character with her inner thoughts was just weird. We get it, you’re an author. No one thinks about themselves the way this woman thinks. “I’m an author so I have to know why. I’m an author so I think differently than everyone else. I’m an author so I’m tough.” She made me want to punch her in the face so I didn’t even care when her husband shot her. And how come every bad guy was a “foreigner”? Bad guy husband from the Czech Republic. Bad guy Albanian mobsters. Evil Czech women. Dirty Czech whores. But so many nice white people who were just a little naive? Come on! This book was atrocious. Not even sure why I’m giving it two stars but I think I’ve only given one star reviews to books I DNF. I think I might have to give up on Lisa Unger. I liked Confessions on the 7:45 but everything else has fallen flat.

[Linda C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am probably being overly generous with the stars (probably 3.5 would be a fairer rating) as I usually reserve four stars for books with either exceptional writing or books that appealed to me on a deep level, but this book is a strong example of suspense/crime drama. Ergo, it earned four stars.

Although you knew from the beginning that Isabel's husband was not who he said he was, this was a tight, entertaining book to read. Of course, I wanted Marcus to redeem himself and come back for Isabel, or for Isabel to decide that she loved him no matter what he did (OK, maybe that would be a stretch, since he did kill a number of people... LOL) In any case, even though we knew a lot of things from the beginning, this was still a fun read.

In the matter of the stars and reviews, I have been accused of being overly critical and unkind to certain authors (I called "The Castaways" one of the worst books ever written and gave it one star), but it is not that I am being elitist-- it's that I don't like bad writing in whatever category you're reading. If you are going to write chick lit, write good chick lit. If you're going to write suspense/crime novels, write good ones. Few books in either genre will be remembered as great literature, but they can be well written and fun to read.

This book was fun to read. I cared about the characters, and what happened to them. It was interesting to see how Marcus could manipulate so many people, even when people had misgivings about him.

[Nellakii❤ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ενα αρκετα καλο βιβλιο,σιγουρα οχι τοσο καλο οσο περιμενα..
Θα ελεγα πως απεχει απο ενα αστυνομικο θριλερ και δεν θα το χαρακτηριζα ετσι..
Μια ενδιαφερουσα ιστορια,με αγωνια και δραση αλλα τιποτα παραπανω...