The Breakdown
- B A Paris
- Mar 8, 2017
- 2 min read
Like many others, I also read Behind Closed Doors and absolutely loved it but didn't feel this quite lived up to those dizzying heights of 'grippiness', yet The Breakdown is a good tense story which has you on the edge of your seat wanting to know what happens next.
B A Paris has a talent for creating a tense atmosphere, a feeling of unease and building on that unease to unsettle the mind – both the character's and reader's.
We start the book with Cass driving home down a little back lane one dark stormy night and noticing a car possibly broken down in a lay-by, she stops to help. She becomes too fearful of getting out of the car so waits to see if the female occupant approaches for help. When nothing happens, she drives off and goes home to bed. The next day she is distraught to hear that a young woman has been murdered in the lay-by she paused in last night. Cass feels guilt over not helping and this plays on her conscience for days and weeks to come. On top of this she is receiving silent phone calls every day and she's convinced they are from the murderer.
These calls, the feeling she's being watched, the stress of the upcoming new term at the school where she is a teacher, all play on her mind to the point she has almost become housebound. There are few characters in the book, mainly Cass and Matthew and Cass's friend Rachel. It is all set over a short space of time, just a few months from summer to autumn, but such a lot of doubt, lies and mistrust are packed into what were good relationships at the beginning to disaster by the end.
This story shows how quickly a normal happy and well functioning young professional woman can be mentally brought down by guilt, stress and pressure. It may seem weak to give in to the stresses of work or the guilt of not helping when you could have, but add to that daily silent phone calls from someone you believe thinks you witnessed a murder. That's enough to push anyone towards a mental breakdown.
I think B A Paris has done an excellent job of showing how quickly and easily a person can be sucked into a spiral of mental fatigue to the point that they can't function normally. I found the book to be quite gripping, with a final satisfying twist at the end.