This book started out so well. There was the premise that a serial killerwas taking advantage of people who signed up as members of a suicide clubs. The main character,Lily, is a judge presiding over the case of a beautiful, young, single mother accused of locking her toddler in the trunk of her car and causing his death. (Right out of the Casey Anthony headlines?). Lily hasn't heard from her daughter, Shana, who is attending law school. Sheflies up to see her and finds her to be distraught and somewhat irrational. Lily takes herto a mental health hospital that she located online. It is a very shady place where theytrick Shana into signing herself into the facility. Then they lie to Lily saying Shanadoesn't want her to call or visit. So now we have the situation of a sane person locked intoan asylum, unable to escape, contact their family, or convince anyone that they don't belongthere. It all promised to be an interesting and exciting read. What happened?? Mary, an FBI agent, has some theories about the serial killer, suicide club connection and is gung ho to follow up. Then she, and that side of the story is just dropped until the end ofthe book. The case of the mother and the baby in the trunk abruptly ends when the defense lawyerproduces tests that show that the mother is actually retarded. Seems that her father was sorich that she just paid other people to do all her school work in high school and college and no one ever noticed that she only had an I.Q of 70. Not the police. Not the court. Meanwhile, Shana is held hostage at the mental hospital run by an evil doctor who's sole purpose is to extract as much money from the patients insurance as he possibly can.Shana becomes friends with the other inmates and falls in love with one of them , Alex. Shana's ordeal in the facility and her attemptto free herself is by far the most interesting and intriguing part of the story, and then two thirds of the way through the book prestochango a sympathetic nurse lets her use the phone to call her mother and she's out. So the rest of the book turns into an anti-climatic and boring tale of Alex stalking Shana. Oh, and this is picky, but "stewardess"? Come on. Move intothe 21st century. The premise was good; however, the characters (Lily and her daughter Shanna) are over the top...prone to outlandish behavior, histeronics and very little self-worth (extremely codependent on men, any man for that matter). The FBI segment didn't even mesh with the storyline, just plopped in there to be able to incorporate the characters from her previous book. Very contrived. I also felt that the "suicide club" didn't relate at all to Alex's issues and found it difficult to believe he was the murderer in this seemingly unrelated storyline. Nancy Taylor Rosenberg has always been a favorite author of mine but she needs to retire these characters with this book and move on.
What do You think about Mädchenjagd (2013)?
I've read several of Rosenberg's books and am never disappointed.
—belinda31014
The book gave me a whole new insight about mental hospitals.
—Cathyboo
This book was so good it kept you in suspense from page I.
—cody
