Review: Invisible by James Patterson

Title: Invisible

Author: James Patterson and David Ellis

Published: 2014 by Century

Pages: 399

Find it at: Flipkart / Amazon

My Rating: 5/5

Goodreads Blurb!

Everyone thinks Emmy Dockery is crazy. Obsessed with finding the link between hundreds of unsolved cases, Emmy has taken leave from her job as an FBI researcher. Now all she has are the newspaper clippings that wallpaper her bedroom, and her recurring nightmares of an all-consuming fire.

Not even Emmy's ex-boyfriend, field agent Harrison "Books" Bookman, will believe her that hundreds of kidnappings, rapes, and murders are all connected. That is, until Emmy finds a piece of evidence he can't afford to ignore. More murders are reported by the day--and they're all inexplicable. No motives, no murder weapons, no suspects. Could one person really be responsible for these unthinkable crimes?

INVISIBLE is James Patterson's scariest, most chilling stand-alone thriller yet.

My Thoughts!

I don’t exactly remember why I wanted this book. I already had a few James Patterson mysteries lying unread, but the blurb sparked something and I wanted to read this as well. It’s one of the best decisions I made, when it comes to book choices. Not only was the mystery well plotted and narrated, it was presented and created in a way that would make you hide under the covers, especially if you’d be reading this book at night. Emmy Dockery is a researcher with FBI, on temporary leave, but totally consumed by information about fires breaking out in different homes across the country, the victims charred to death, just like her twin sister Marta. She was in an accidental house fire in January, and no one but Emmy was convinced that she was murdered. When she tries getting the FBI’s help, her boss, also known as the Dick, ensures that she isn’t taken seriously, not until Emmy manages to get Books, her ex-fiancé and ex-FBI agent, onto the case.

That’s when things gradually make sense and the team with minimum resources initially, study the data and try figuring out the serial killer, the one dangerous criminal who has killed more than seventy people across North America, and not very swiftly either. It’s a gradual chase, but let me tell you at the onset that it’s going to keep you hooked (for example, it took me a day and a half to complete it, forgoing sleep for hours and resuming it first thing in the morning). Be ready to be hoodwinked, both by the author as well as by the characters. The story catches pace gradually, introducing characters, but never goes away from the central plot. As the events unfold one by one, you are left grappling with facts and clinging on to someone as the killer, but it only gets worse, especially in the later half of the book. This book will make your hearts beat faster, make you breathless with fear and you’d probably mutter stuff like ‘no, shit!!’ or ‘ohmygod! How did that happen?’ or perhaps be speechless, but feel goosebumpy nevertheless. I’d give it a full star rating just for this effect; it’s been done so brilliantly.

The writing is fun: it’s quirky, yet serious. The characters seemed perfect in all their glory and flaws. I liked Emmy a lot, even though she’s been shown as someone with trust issues or thinking a bit too independently. But then, that’s who she is, and this story is about how she wants to find her sister’s killer, along with hundreds of other victims. It’s about facing so many obstacles, getting rejected, crushed, defeated numerous times, but with a little support and marvellous conviction that she’s right, Emmy goes forward even when she’s all alone. Other characters have their own stories as well, but thankfully those don’t interfere with the plot. I loved this book: for having a gut-wrenching, heart-racing, mind-blowing mystery, for being presented in a way that you wouldn’t know what’s coming in the next page, for making your jaw drop and crying out loud when you discover the killer and make sense of the story, for making you feel like calling up James Patterson and demand a longer explanation in the end. Seriously, I wish the end could have been wrapped up better, but I suspect this is a plot in itself – to make the reader go back and read the book again!

I’d recommend this book to every mystery lover but only to those who’re used to, or are ready to read gruesome details and gory murders. It’s not an easy book to digest, what with perfect detailing as to how the killer tortured his victims. So I’d ask the soft-hearted to be careful, but if you ever get the heart, read it! It’s brilliant.

“You’re your own worst enemy, Marta always said to me. You don’t need anyone to torment you because you do it to yourself.”

“A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

“You must do today what nobody else will do, so tomorrow you can accomplish what others can’t.” 

Thank you Random House publishers for this book! :)