Twisted

by Lynda La Plante

The exciting new standalone thriller from the No. 1 bestselling mistress of suspense

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

512 pages, Paperback

First published June 5, 2014

About the author

Lynda La Plante, CBE (born Lynda Titchmarsh) is a British author, screenwriter, and erstwhile actress (her performances in Rentaghost and other programmes were under her stage name of Lynda Marchal), best known for writing the Prime Suspect television crime series.

Her first TV series as a scriptwriter was the six part robbery series Widows, in 1983, in which the widows of four armed robbers carry out a heist planned by their deceased husbands.

In 1991 ITV released Prime Suspect which has now run to seven series and stars Helen Mirren as DCI Jane Tennison. (In the United States Prime Suspect airs on PBS as part of the anthology program Mystery!) In 1993 La Plante won an Edgar Award from the Mystery Writers of America for her work on the series. In 1992 she wrote at TV movie called Seekers, starring Brenda Fricker and Josette Simon, produced by Sarah Lawson.

She formed her own television production company, La Plante Productions, in 1994 and as La Plante Productions she wrote and produced the sequel to Widows, the equally gutsy She's Out (ITV, 1995). The name "La Plante" comes from her marriage to writer Richard La Plante, author of the book Mantis and Hog Fever. La Plante divorced Lynda in the early 1990s.

Her output continued with The Governor (ITV 1995-96), a series focusing on the female governor of a high security prison, and was followed by a string of ratings pulling miniseries: the psycho killer nightmare events of Trial & Retribution (ITV 1997-), the widows' revenge of the murders of their husbands & children Bella Mafia (1997) (starring Vanessa Redgrave), the undercover police unit operations of Supply and Demand (ITV 1998), videogame/internet murder mystery Killer Net (Channel 4 1998) and the female criminal profiler cases of Mind Games (ITV 2001).

Two additions to the Trial and Retribution miniseries were broadcast during 2006.

Reviews

[James · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really bad crime drama written throughout in the oddest of ways, increasingly freaking me out. People disappear, people die, people go mad all in the passive past tense. The people in this book suffered terribly as did I. I left my copy onboard a flight to Zurich and if some person is now trying to improve their English by reading this book that would be bad.

[Kelsie · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not enjoy this book one bit. I literally skimmed the last 300 pages, La Plante puts in too much useless details, these details are often repeated over and over, I don't need to know about the friggin' lace on the pillows, I don't need it drilled into me that Amy's room at her mother's house is neat and her room at her father's house is messy, like that was said so many times in the book. I only continued reading this because a)I truly hate quitting a book and b) I got so far into the book, I deserved to know how it was going to end. The ending was terrible as well. Plus I am so pissed that near the beginning when Amy goes missing, no one arrested Miss Polka for essentially fucking a kid, like she's literally a pedo and committed statutory rape but nah she's a woman so we'll let is slide.
Give me a fucking break.
x

[Andi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not on par with many of her other novels. Started off semi believable and turned from about a third of the way. I still wanted to read on and finish the book although the storyline was getting very annoying.

[Liz Barnsley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really excellent gritty crime drama - can't believe this is actually my first La Plante book considering what a fan I am of the genre! Full review to follow at some point a bit slammed at the moment and SO behind. But definitely recommended.

[Soozi O'Quim · Rating 2 out of 5]

I felt compelled to write this, my first review, as the experience was that bad. The first chapter irritated me enough to read 2 different books before going back to it.

The author writes well, very clinical with plenty of detectivey descriptions. To be fair I didn't expect the turn the plot took, but neither did I totally buy into it.

Without a spoiler, the last chapter was horrendously written and likely the worst ending line since 'It was all a dream'.

Pleasant enough read for a lengthy plane journey but my copy's now in the log burner...

[Jayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

This 2024 recently released 16-hour audiobook should have been called "L-O-N-G! instead of "Twisted."

Per GoodReads, "Twisted" was originally released in 2014.

I was intrigued by the book's "What happened to my missing 15-year-old daughter?" premise but as the book progressed, the author lost me with repetitious text and very, very, very slow pacing.

Kudos to narrator Emma Gregory for doing a superb job with the narration.

DNF at 40%

[Anne M. · Rating 2 out of 5]

This must be the worst Lynda La Plante book I have ever read.
I could accept the strange mental illness suffered by one of the characters, but the storyline was too far fetched for me. I don't want to say too much and give away the plot.
But multiple murders a police chief who sounded so stupid you wondered how he got into the police in the first place. The policeman leading the original investigation was insipid and not very likeable.
I plodded through it although the story seemed to be at an end it continued on and on and on until it reached the worst ending ever.

[Natalie Courbet · Rating 1 out of 5]

ARGHHH! What a pointless book!!!

[Adrie Fourie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Having been a La Plante fan for many years I looked forward to what this new stand-alone novel could be like. What a colossal disappointment. The book had too many unrelated plots and pieces of information. At times felt like someone just googled the places involved in the story and just put down all the facts they could find.
Many of the characters where too flawed to bring any value to the story and made it a disappointing read!
If your a fan, don't spoil it all by reading this book.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am really starting to miss my 5* books. I have been returning to my fall back authors such as lynda la plante as usually they deliver consistently good easy reads with plots I can't guess from the onset.

this like so many recently just didn't live up to my expectations.

not going to add much more because it will just add to my dissapointment...

PLEASE NOTE this isn't a bad book; just not as good as some of her others

[Wendy Greenberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another page turner from LLP. I loved the gripping tale unravelling a "perfect" teenager but thought the ending was too lengthy and just too unlikely to believe...Too neatly tied up for a crime story

[Marie-Anne · Rating 1 out of 5]

Made it to 11% and gave up.

This woman has just returned from the police station after (eventually) realising her daughter has been missing since the previous Saturday:

"Lena closed her eyes; the warm shower was relaxing her. She washed her hair at the same time, soaping up the frothing foam and then using the residue to wash her armpits and then gritted her teeth to turn on the cold water to rinse. As the warm water had relaxed her, the icy cold made her body tingle and she then gave herself a really hard rubdown with a snow-white towel. Naked, she went into the bedroom and turned on the hair dryer, not bothering to carefully style her thick hair, but simply running her fingers through it to dry it as quickly as possible. She gave her still damp hair a few brush strokes and chose underwear, a silk blouse and suede trousers with high-heeled leather boots. Staring at her face in the magnifying mirror on her dressing table, she saw she looked paler than ever, but her skin was fresh and glowing from the icy-cold shower. She brushed on a light powder foundation, soft brown eye shadow and then some mascara to darken her eyelashes. She was very adept at making it appear she wore no makeup, but of late the telltale lines had started showing between her eyes and at their corners, and from her nose to mouth. The only sign that Lena, beneath her carefully created image of fresh innocence, was quite a tough woman were her eyes. They often gave off a steely cold expression, and her mouth frequently turned down into not exactly a grimace but a tight thin-lipped line." 

🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄

[Genna · Rating 2 out of 5]

In essence this book was alright - the story was interesting enough to start with, with plenty of twists and turns but what I didn't like outweighed all that. Firstly, the characters - there wasn't one among them who I liked AT ALL. From the cold, rich mother, the promiscuous money-grabbing father, the nosy housekeeper, the wholly inappropriate art teacher, to the absolutely hopeless Detective Reid who misses clues, withholds evidence, forgets to warn potential victims of danger. . . As the plot begins to unravel, I found it less and less believable - especially when we find out what's wrong with Lena (the mum) but also when the police are jumping to conclusions about the dad's involvement in his daughter's disappearance - I mean, I'm no detective but the only evidence they really found was the daughter's watch in his car (no reason why that can't have dropped off innocently) and the top she'd last been seen in (but the dad hadn't said definitively that she'd not gone to his flat because he didn't know!) so pretty flimsy stuff.
By the end everything had been explained but, again, at the expense of realism. Not really my cup of tea.

[Romy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. It was a real page turner. You just had to find out what happend to poor Amy. The only thing that kind of let me down was the end. In the end I feel like it needed at least another chapter. The ending left you kind of guessing what would happen next. I know some people like that sort of endings so they can fill in the blank space but for me I like to have some closure, I want to know what would have happend next. and this book just left the ending too open while there could have been 2 or 3 more dialogues.

[Steph · Rating 4 out of 5]

A brilliantly fantastic proper crime novel filled with plenty of drama and unexpectedness that left me unable to put the book down.
A proper crime novel in that I had no idea what had happened to Amy Fulford or who was responsible,it literally could have been anyone.
Full of so many different characters,all under suspicion.
I would have gave it 5 stars if it weren't for the ending,yes we found out what happened to Amy but it was just left right at that point and nothing else had been resolved.

[Shanna · Rating 1 out of 5]

What the actual f*ck was this ??
I have loved all her books for so long - this was literally unbelievably bad. I didn't blink when major characters died because I simply did not care. My God, what a train smash of a book. Do NOT read this -- you'll be daydreaming the good stuff is coming . It isn't - and it doesn't .

[Vikki Hanning · Rating 3 out of 5]

I couldn't put this book down until about the last 3/4, it then started to get really unbelievable. The ending was just plain terrible which is always such a let down. On the whole I enjoyed it and will read another of her books but not in a rush.

[Jon Wilkin · Rating 1 out of 5]

Awful! I have read most of her books and enjoyed most of them, however Twisted is in my top twenty of the worst books I have ever had the misfortune to pick up.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not for me a bit boring about a 3rd way through characters were annoying & not believable

[Michael Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent as the title suggests there were twists and turns great read

[Casey H · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twisted was an appropriate title.
I found the story to be too long winded. It could have been shorter and more concise.

The writing style reminded me of Danielle Steele.

Unfortunately this story was not really my type of book.
The one good thing I liked was atleast the ending tied up all the loose ends.

[Pat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. This is probably not one of La Plante's best books. I would love to read more but it is hard to find her stuff as an e-book. A shame really as I remember some cracking reads from back in the day.

[Bichons_and_books_nz · Rating 1 out of 5]

Very disappointing from one of my favourite authors. Was a train wreak, sub plots, characters and totally unbelievable.
Don't bother wasting your time on this one, like I did

[David Highton · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bit too long for the core plot but plenty of twists

[Mary Monks · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a brilliant storyteller La Plante is!!!!
Parents Lena and Marcus have separated and their 15 year-old daughter Amy ( at boarding school during the week) spends alternate weekends with each parent.
Then, Amy goes missing and each parent blames the other.
A diary with Amy's name on the front is found and horrific things are uncovered.
Is she really the perfect daughter Lena and Marcus think, or is there more to her?
What is truth and what is not?
Is it a missing person case? ... or a murder case? DI Reid has his work cut out for him.
I must add though, that I did think the ending was a little contrived!
Even so, this book is a real "page-turner" and I was enthralled.

[Richard Danks · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm glad I didn't read the other reviews before reading this book, as many were very negative. I have read around a dozen of La Plante's books and enjoyed reading them. The only problem I found with those earlier bools was, that at times, her interjections, explaining a person's thoughts or actions, somewhat juvenile, as though written for a teenager or a less mature reader.
However, I found this book fast paced, credible, suspenseful without being frustrating, and thoroughly enjoyable. In fact, I had difficulty putting it down. For me, it was easily her best book.
As my reviews regularly differ from those of most other reviewers, I hesitate about recommending it to other potential readers.
I'll just say, 'for me it was a great read'.

[Clare · Rating 3 out of 5]

Firstly I want to make it clear that I listened to this as an unabridged audio book.

I have never read a book by Lynda La Plante but I enjoyed the adaptations of Jane Tennison and Anna Travis on TV.

The beginning of Twisted was exciting and I literally could not stop listening. The audio lasted 5 hours and I listened to it in one day.

Without ruining the story the ending was a big let down. Yes the ends were neatly tied up, but the ending was ridiculous. I was very disappointed, the story ended so abruptly. It almost like Miss La Plante had a tight deadline to meet and gave up on it.

[Gerda · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some other readers have already said it, but I will say it again. The first half of the book is a bit of a non-event. When the murder squad takes over things speed up a bit although I found the character of DCI Jackson a bit unlikely. Or rather, if there are policemen like him, perhaps they should look for another career.
The end is not bad, but I would have liked to know what happened with Amy after all that.

[Claire · Rating 2 out of 5]

First Lynda La Plante book I have read and was disappointed. Reviews I have previously read sounded like it would be a good thriller. The story started out good then very quickly lost my interest, I would go so far as to say that I struggled to finish it but I did eventually finish the book. i will read one of her earlier books and then make my mind up about whether to read any more by this author. I know there are better books out there to read so onto the next book....

[Zoe Hall · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the first Lynda LaPlante book I've ever read and I was actually very impressed with the writing. I thought it was very clever, especially with the numerous suspects and the various lines of enquiry that were taken by DI Reid and his team. I will definitely be checking out more of Lynda LaPlante's work. An excellent read which raised many issues, including mental health and abuse. I would highly recommend!