In today’s day and age, where dating is the norm and being single a rarity, Sunday Times best-selling author Frieda McFadden manages to have a chill sent down your spine with her gripping, breathtaking mystery book — ‘The Boyfriend’, which somehow manages to turn one skittish yet intrigued.
It all starts with a dive into the past and present by the lead characters, Tom and Sydney. While one narrates depictions from the past, the other quite innocently states ongoing events, oblivious of what awaits her next. At first, the connection between Tom and Sydney seems unclear but with time this too, effortlessly unfolds. The opening lines are enough to make one squirm with its brutal, sadistic charm as it reads: “I’m desperately, completely and stupidly in love”.
Sydney Shaw, an accountant in New York has seen it all, from men who turn out to be undesirable compared to the profile pics uploaded, to those who stick the dinner bill to her. With time, one gets the feel that this woman seems to have almost given up. But then finally, she hits the jackpot. Or, she naively believes to have done so.
Tom, one of the many from the spree of new boyfriends seems to be the complete package to her! He’s intensely charming and alluringly handsome, they have a sizzling chemistry on and guess what? He even works as a doctor at the local hospital. Sydney finds this combo too tempting to resist.
Call it a woman’s intuition or an in-built radar system, but despite the green flags, Sydney finds herself surrounded by a barrage of questions. Are these self-gifted suspicions? However, these seem too impeding to be ignored. To make things worse, things fall flat on their face when under mysterious circumstances one of her best friends and neighbours, Bonnie is found cold-bloodedly murdered with a part of her hair, close to the scalp lining pulled off. More like a souvenir collected by the psychopath killer.
The author Frieda gives the book a chilly squeeze when she has both characters Tom and Sydney set in as first-person narrators.
There are dark turns and twists that run through the pages with each character having something to reveal. Be it, Slug, Tom’s childhood friend fond of eating insects, appearing to be stupid and harmless yet strangely being well versed with the ins and outs’ of burying a dead body to Tom himself who fancies amputating limbs and arms for a living!
The gory depictions and honest confessions in the book have you pause and ponder every now and then, upon the very extent of human desire. For most of the book, one would be unabashedly certain of having known the killer, however, Frieda manages to have plans otherwise.
Despite the brutality in the happenings, one finds it extremely difficult to hate any of these characters. However, at the same time, it would make one walk down the long and narrow tunnel of loathing desire and conflicting demons that have you question the many things one could do in the blessed name of love!
