Article Contributed on: 4/13/2007 8:24:25 PM
Amanda Stevens: The Dollmaker.
Publisher: Mira (release date: Mar 2007)
Category: Thriller
ISBN-10: 0778324281
ISBN-13: 978-0778324287
The Dollmaker by Amanda Stevens has just been added to my list of all-time favorite thrillers. I do not think I will ever be able to look at a doll in quite the same way.
The Dollmaker is a modern story a mother's desperate attempts to find her missing daughter and obsession haunting the individual players. Even days after finishing the last page, I am still delighted with this book! The imagery, the haunting Southern setting and the amazing writing captured my interest then and now.
Claire Doucett just cannot forget her daughter, Ruby, who was kidnapped seven years ago. The abduction led to the dissolution of her marriage to Dave Creasy, a former policeman, who has spent the past 7 years also trying to climb out of inner darkness and despair. While out shopping with her sister Charlotte, she spots a doll in the window of a collectible shop in New Orleans. The doll looks like her missing daughter Ruby, all the way down to the small birthmark. No one in her family seems to believe her and they all want her to just forget this doll and move on with her life.
Claire also just cannot forget the face of this strangely lifelike doll. Even if she could, the strange disappearances, accidents, theft and possible murders that emerge once the doll's existence becomes known make her determined to locate this doll.
Dave Creasy, a former cop turned private investigator, held a secret or two from Claire when their daughter suddenly disappeared. Will those secrets emerge Graydon Losier wants to hire him to investigate the the case of his missing daughter Nina? What relation does Nina's disappearance have to the cold case file of the murder of Renee Savarin? Is there any relation to that case and the case of his missing daughter? Will Claire's pleas divert him from his mission?
Stevens creates a perfect mix of allowing the reader to have enough clues and even to hear the voice of the perpetrator to understand the interlacing psychologial aspects behind the characters and to maintain the suspense...to maintain the suspense. Nevertheless, she withholds just enough to peak the reader's interest on every page. I was drawn into her characters, their weaknesses and depth and watching them change as the story developed. Even though the reader knows certain aspects of the ending from the very beginning, the suspense builds and builds. The ending has unexpected, shocking surprises. Everything is not all tied up with a pretty bow at the end, and yet the reader feels very satisfied. The ending was well-planned....a surprise and one also true to the characters.
There is not a lot of romance
per se in this novel, but as a thriller, the reader is drawn into the characters and their romantic histories. What distinguishes
The Dollmaker as an exceptional thriller from other good thrillers is the adeptness with which Stevens creates multi-dimensional characters that continue to draw the reader deeper and deeper from page to page.
A doll....normally such an innocent charming item certainly gets transformed here! Delightfully creepy!
Rating: 5 stars (A+)
Personal reflections on this thriller:
I stayed up til 3 or 4am reading the bulk of this book the first night. Even though I had an idea of the unfolding story (maybe....and maybe not....), I was still drawn forward and drawn into the characters. The surprise ending was well-planned....and a surprise!
I just love the cover illustration of this book. I know, even if every book had a black cover with white lettering, I would still be an avid reader. Nevertheless, it is quite nice to look at a nice cover every time I open and close a book. Part of reading a book is the experience of the senses...the feel of the pages across the fingers, the colors, the font on the pages, the smell.... I still remember with a special fondness the smell of all the books I read all those summers in my youth visiting my grandmother in Bermuda. A bit of salt and humidity. Whenever I smell that same aroma (rare in dry Colorado) I remember all those summers, my youth, and my grandmother. Somehow, all those senses add to my reading experience. This cover captures the creepy innocence of the doll image so well --- and in my favorite color scheme too!
I do not like gratuitous gore and violence. In today's times, it seems like the suspense/thriller genre --- especially in film --- substitutes gore and violence for real suspense. I love Alfred Hitchcock, but I never care to see
Psycho again after I saw it once. Taking a shower in prep school was not fun after seeing that movie! I loved
CSI: Criminal Scene Investigation when it started but then I got tired of it. For a while it seemed like every one was about a woman (usually a prostitute) raped / butchered and always because she is a woman for one reason or another. Boring! As a reader or viewer, I want suspense, thrills and mystery. I don't want to see anything censored but I just prefer less gratuitous gore/violence that seems so prevalent, especially in my favorite genres. It's difficult. There has to be enough darkness but not too much.
Amanda Stevens is one of the few thriller authors today who has the skill to tread that fine line.
The Dollmaker keeps all the spine tingles and darkness and, even better, manages to do it without making me recoil or just bored with meaningless violence. For this and more, I have rated this book a 5 (A+).
I would not be surprised if this book became a movie but I think I would prefer the book unless the director was really unique. I think Hollywood would take out the subtlety I love so much.
Website of author Amanda Stevens
for interesting biography, descriptions of future releases and her blog.