Stalking a good thrill

Stalking a good thrill

Kayleigh Towne is a country singer who has clearly been modelled by author Jeffery Deaver in the likeness of real-life country star, Taylor Swift. She is a sweet, innocent, and all-American singer, whose heartfelt lyrics and simple melodies about home, love and cowgirls have made her a favourite on the country circuit. She is surrounded by a loving group of family and friends that includes Kathryn Dance, an agent with the California Bureau of Investigation and a body language expert who has appeared in two other Deaver novels. Deaver’s talent of ominous timing ensures we never see Kayleigh as an enviable figure, despite her being young, beautiful, talented and famous. XO begins with transcripts of emails Kayleigh receives from a stalker (“It would be sooo cool if you could send me a lock of your hair!”). The stalker has repeatedly discovered Kayleigh’s personal email address, no matter how many times she changes it. Kayleigh’s stalker knows her life better than she seems to know it. He charts her life with unnerving accuracy by turning the simplicity of Kayleigh’s songs into something creepy. “I’ll be your shadow. Forever,” ends one email, making a reference to Kayleigh’s runaway hit, Shadow. The drama begins with one of Kayleigh’s crewmembers, an ex-boyfriend of hers, dying in what appears to be an accidental fire at the venue where the singer was to perform the next day. And the murder seems to be inspired by the first verse of “Shadow”. Worried for Kayleigh’s safety, Kathryn joins the team investigating this case. The first suspect is Edwin, one of Kayleigh’s admirers who seems to always hang around her. However, it wouldn’t be a Deaver novel if we reached the conclusion so quickly. Edwin is implicated and absolved; new suspects are brought in, disposed of or killed. After the third, this-time-for-sure criminal has been caught, only to be exonerated a few pages later, some readers might flip to the end out of sheer frustration. Those who hate spoilers should skip to the next paragraph. Edwin is Kayleigh’s stalker and the outstanding achievement of XO. He is quietly terrifying and completely confident in the love he believes Kayleigh feels for him. The few times we see him, he is either watching Kayleigh from a distance or being interrogated by increasingly-befuddled police and an observant Kathryn. His normalcy is unnerving. Deaver’s weaknesses as a writer reveal themselves when he attempts to splice episodes from real life into the world of his thriller. These range from a confrontation that Kayleigh has at an awards ceremony, which echoes the famous incident between Taylor Swift and rapper Kanye West at the 2009 Video Music Awards, to a diversion into American immigration policies. The first seems lazy and contrived and while the latter develops to be a critically important aspect of the plot, listening to Deaver hold forth on the politics of immigration is not gripping. XO is formulaic but enjoyable when Deaver plays with the standard plot devices of the thriller genre — twists and surprise endings, friends turning into foes, and foes turning into victims. His descriptions are less accomplished (there are only so many times Edwin can “smile threateningly”) and Deaver’s love for country music results in unnecessary lectures (he spends three pages explaining how the music world has changed with the internet and subsequent downloading — facts known to most). Still, XO is sure to delight fans of thrillers, so long as they’re also patient.