The Only Child

Title: The Only Child
Author: Andrew Pyper
Genre: Fiction, Thriller
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: June 6, 2017
Rating: ★★★

Lily Dominick is a forensic psychologist. She analyzes dangerous criminals locked up in New York’s Kirby facility. One day, a man comes in who ripped the ears off a stranger with his bare hands. But he tells Lily that he did it so he could be sent to see her. He tells Lily things about herself to prove that he knows who she is. She lived in a cabin with her mother in Alaska, but her mother was brutally murdered when Lily was six. She never knew her father. Now, this man claims to be her father. Once he escapes police custody and murders one of Lily’s colleagues, she is led on a chase to find out the truth behind the mysterious man, Michael, and her true lineage.

This story had a lot going on. Michael claims to have been the inspiration for Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde, and Dracula. Normally, I like contemporary stories that are based on classics. However, this one had too much going on with Michael claiming to be all three monsters.

I didn’t have a big enough emotional connection to root for Lily in the story. She made a lot of bad decisions and didn’t seem very stable so she wasn’t a very likeable character.

I enjoyed the end of the story. It was a thrilling chase leading to the conclusion. It was very intense. But the story still dealt with too many possible thriller plot lines for me: it had monsters, vampires, spies, murders, fake passports, abandoned cabins, and an orphaned girl. I think if it had less of these typical aspects of the contemporary thriller story, it would have been a better story.