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The Monitor
Yoshitomo Tagawa never leaves his room. He lives in reverse, sleeping during the day and staying up at night, connected to a technological world of online games, chat rooms and cybersex. Yoshi, like over one million of Japan’s youth, is hikikomori, completely withdrawn from society. When a cunning predator uses the far-reaching tentacles of the Internet to compel the depressed and disillusioned into forming suicide pacts, Yoshi should be safe.
Lieutenant Carolyn Latham races to a hellish scene on a hill high above Cypress Village, Oregon. Four teenagers are dead, and Carolyn learns that together, they decided to “catch the bus,” with a little inspiration from the Monitor, who claims to want to end their suffering.
The investigation leads Carolyn into a shadow world, where no one is what they seem and imposters lurk everywhere. She must unmask the Monitor before he unleashes more unspeakable evil; she realizes that the deeply troubled Yoshi may hold the key to the Monitor’s identity. But Yoshi has disappeared, and now the Monitor is closer than Carolyn thinks.
Lieutenant Carolyn Latham races to a hellish scene on a hill high above Cypress Village, Oregon. Four teenagers are dead, and Carolyn learns that together, they decided to “catch the bus,” with a little inspiration from the Monitor, who claims to want to end their suffering.
The investigation leads Carolyn into a shadow world, where no one is what they seem and imposters lurk everywhere. She must unmask the Monitor before he unleashes more unspeakable evil; she realizes that the deeply troubled Yoshi may hold the key to the Monitor’s identity. But Yoshi has disappeared, and now the Monitor is closer than Carolyn thinks.
372 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 17, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
November 11, 2014
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Brought to you by OBS reviewer Scott
This book’s subject is not for the faint of heart, yet is all too real to dismiss readily. Suicidal people, those who wish to “catch the bus” as Cathy Vasas-Brown puts it quaintly, meet on an internet forum and seek out the means to their ends in the company of other like-minded individuals. Enter the chilling world of The Monitor an urban crime novel focused around police investigator Carolyn Lapham’s unravelling of a puzzle that exposes suicide cases as probable murders. Like most good crime stories, The Monitor has a ready cast of friends, acquaintances, personalities and individuals that dangle like tangled threads that need unravelling. Caught up in the sometimes witty prose, I found myself tending to get lost in this tale of despair, yet could not put the book down – a well-seasoned sign of a good thriller.
Although taking place in the fictional suburbanized town of Cypress Village, Oregon, the setting and places are extremely realistic, and with the omnipresent internet, the drama could play out in any sizable town in North America. The characters are equally three dimensional beings with whom the readers can empathize. Knowing the characters’ inner most thoughts engaged me directly with the protagonists and antagonists; and over the course of Carolyn’s and her partner Ziggy’s investigations; and Joshua’s dealings with Yoshi, a house-bound, despondent youth; openings are formed that link the puzzle pieces together in such a way that they fall neatly into place at the end of the novel, like a good contemporary crime novel should.
The moral and ethical crux of the book lies in the subject of suicide or assisted suicide itself. While neither pro-choice nor anti-choice in the novel, the thought of it eats away at the very fabric of your being. Imagining the hopelessness, desperation and futility of the interjected postings of the sometimes clinically depressed people on the forum, the reader is left as helpless as they are when the end comes. Had it been presented in any other way, I believe that this nature of the suicide dilemma would be lost. Tying it to a real life phenomenon gave the book extra kudos and a more pressing realism.
Looking through the lens of Carolyn, a hard edged cop whose husband has left her after he had an affair, her twin brother Joshua, a social worker for troubled youths at the 3F house, and the monitor, a mysterious lurker on the suicide forum that is ready to grant the troubled members their very wishes, gives precisely enough room for this mystery to play out. The pace starts out slow, the strands of the mystery slowly growing, building to a crescendo when the web is spun then plummets down catching the reader in its trap and then back up again as they claw their way back out. The Monitor left me satisfied with the novel’s complete closure.
Overall, the novel is well constructed, the characterization is vivid and it is poignant in today’s society, it garnered my interest and delivered what it promised. For fans of crime fiction, suspense thrillers, or the lovers of mystery, The Monitor delivers in spades.
*OBS would like to thank the author for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
Brought to you by OBS reviewer Scott
This book’s subject is not for the faint of heart, yet is all too real to dismiss readily. Suicidal people, those who wish to “catch the bus” as Cathy Vasas-Brown puts it quaintly, meet on an internet forum and seek out the means to their ends in the company of other like-minded individuals. Enter the chilling world of The Monitor an urban crime novel focused around police investigator Carolyn Lapham’s unravelling of a puzzle that exposes suicide cases as probable murders. Like most good crime stories, The Monitor has a ready cast of friends, acquaintances, personalities and individuals that dangle like tangled threads that need unravelling. Caught up in the sometimes witty prose, I found myself tending to get lost in this tale of despair, yet could not put the book down – a well-seasoned sign of a good thriller.
Although taking place in the fictional suburbanized town of Cypress Village, Oregon, the setting and places are extremely realistic, and with the omnipresent internet, the drama could play out in any sizable town in North America. The characters are equally three dimensional beings with whom the readers can empathize. Knowing the characters’ inner most thoughts engaged me directly with the protagonists and antagonists; and over the course of Carolyn’s and her partner Ziggy’s investigations; and Joshua’s dealings with Yoshi, a house-bound, despondent youth; openings are formed that link the puzzle pieces together in such a way that they fall neatly into place at the end of the novel, like a good contemporary crime novel should.
The moral and ethical crux of the book lies in the subject of suicide or assisted suicide itself. While neither pro-choice nor anti-choice in the novel, the thought of it eats away at the very fabric of your being. Imagining the hopelessness, desperation and futility of the interjected postings of the sometimes clinically depressed people on the forum, the reader is left as helpless as they are when the end comes. Had it been presented in any other way, I believe that this nature of the suicide dilemma would be lost. Tying it to a real life phenomenon gave the book extra kudos and a more pressing realism.
Looking through the lens of Carolyn, a hard edged cop whose husband has left her after he had an affair, her twin brother Joshua, a social worker for troubled youths at the 3F house, and the monitor, a mysterious lurker on the suicide forum that is ready to grant the troubled members their very wishes, gives precisely enough room for this mystery to play out. The pace starts out slow, the strands of the mystery slowly growing, building to a crescendo when the web is spun then plummets down catching the reader in its trap and then back up again as they claw their way back out. The Monitor left me satisfied with the novel’s complete closure.
Overall, the novel is well constructed, the characterization is vivid and it is poignant in today’s society, it garnered my interest and delivered what it promised. For fans of crime fiction, suspense thrillers, or the lovers of mystery, The Monitor delivers in spades.
*OBS would like to thank the author for supplying a free copy of this title in exchange for an honest review*
April 8, 2014
The author gave me a copy of this novel in exchange for my review.
There’s something almost soul cleansing about a really good psychological thriller. Cathy Vasas-Brown doesn’t write good psychological thrillers, she writes great psychological thrillers. I would liken her style to that of Chelsea Cain, one of the best psychological thriller writers out there. In “The Monitor,” Vasas-Brown builds a scarily familiar world of teen isolationism and despair with a puppet master that leads the teens to believe that the ultimate connection and release comes through dying together.
“The Monitor” is a story with a lot of moving parts. We follow The Monitor and the pro-suicide online forum. We’re learning about Japanese tradition and culture with Joshua, a social worker, who counsels Yoshi who is practicing hikikomori - a complete isolationism. The author educates the reader while entertaining us.
Vasas-Brown’s characters are vivid and real. Carolyn is working on this case but, as reality would dictate, her life goes on. She has an emotionally draining meeting with her ex-husband who has found that the grass isn’t always greener and struggles with sleeplessness and identifying with a girl who seemed to struggle with identity. Carolyn is truly a cop who stands for the dead and she forms a special emotional bond with this neglected and demeaned teenager. Carolyn is rounded by having a cause in her case and that cause is the one child not reported missing. These are characters and situations that stay with you.
“The Monitor” is a brilliant story. Pick it up today.
There’s something almost soul cleansing about a really good psychological thriller. Cathy Vasas-Brown doesn’t write good psychological thrillers, she writes great psychological thrillers. I would liken her style to that of Chelsea Cain, one of the best psychological thriller writers out there. In “The Monitor,” Vasas-Brown builds a scarily familiar world of teen isolationism and despair with a puppet master that leads the teens to believe that the ultimate connection and release comes through dying together.
“The Monitor” is a story with a lot of moving parts. We follow The Monitor and the pro-suicide online forum. We’re learning about Japanese tradition and culture with Joshua, a social worker, who counsels Yoshi who is practicing hikikomori - a complete isolationism. The author educates the reader while entertaining us.
Vasas-Brown’s characters are vivid and real. Carolyn is working on this case but, as reality would dictate, her life goes on. She has an emotionally draining meeting with her ex-husband who has found that the grass isn’t always greener and struggles with sleeplessness and identifying with a girl who seemed to struggle with identity. Carolyn is truly a cop who stands for the dead and she forms a special emotional bond with this neglected and demeaned teenager. Carolyn is rounded by having a cause in her case and that cause is the one child not reported missing. These are characters and situations that stay with you.
“The Monitor” is a brilliant story. Pick it up today.
July 11, 2014
Another outstanding thriller from suspense master Cathy Vasas-Brown, with more twists and turns than the Oregon coastline. A horrific group suicide has Lt. Carolyn Latham of the Cypress Village P.D. looking into copycat syndrome and mass hysteria, as she sets out to solve one of the most unsettling and mysterious cases of her career. Carolyn’s youth counselor brother, Joshua, has his hands full too with a withdrawn teen, Yoshi, who would rather find solace on the internet than in talk therapy. The problem is, in the cyber world, masks are the norm. The reader is drawn into the fascinating and deeply troubling world of Japan’s hikikomori youth that should be a wake-up call to parents. No one is safe. And in Cypress Village, a poser will prove to be Carolyn’s worst nightmare. The Monitor is a hair-raising thriller that will keep you up all night. And the conclusion will have you thinking twice before laying your heart bare on the internet.
December 1, 2013
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews