Of all Charles De Lint's works, I think I prefer the books published under Samuel M. Key. They're darker, more raw. The fear is palpable, which I find delicious. Definitely good for a day when you have nothing to do, because you won’t want to put it down or sleep alone. ( )

4.5 stars

Rachel has just gotten out of an abusive relationship, but her husband doesn’t want to let go. She has a job and only a couple of good friends to help her out. Little does she know, she also has an “admirer” (a peeping tom, really) who will come to her “rescue” when she needs it. But, from his perspective, the perfectly beautiful Rachel will need to be “tested” herself.

Ok, I tried to keep that somewhat vague, as the blurb on the book doesn’t say a whole lot, so I didn’t want to give anything away. This is one of the books de Lint wrote as Samuel Key, a pseudonym he took to distinguish his darker works from his fantasy. It was told in the third person, but the reader got to know more about what was going on, as we did follow a few different characters, than the characters knew, themselves. Certainly by the end of the book, it was a page-turner, keeping me on the edge of my seat, wanting to keep reading to know what would happen! I really really liked this one! ( )

Rachel Sorenson has just escaped an abusive marriage, but she's still not free of her ex-husband. Frank comes along every few nights, talks his way past the security guard at her apartment building, and goes upstairs to beat on her door and demand that she take him back. Police say they just don't have the manpower to guard her around the clock, so she's dealing with this largely on her own.

Little does she know that someone is watching her.

Harry Landon is a photographer obsessed with Beauty. Not subjective beauty in its many forms, but perfect, unblemished, divine Beauty. He thinks he's found his goddess in Rachel. He watches her through his telescope at all hours of the day and night. He takes pictures of her. He knows that the goddess resides within Rachel, and when he cuts her, Beauty will burst forth in a blaze of light.

This is one of Charles de Lint's pseudonym books--the books he wrote openly as Samuel Key as a signal that this book is darker than his normal fare. I didn't care for From a Whisper to a Scream, so I've never been too interested in picking this one up. I finally gave in and read it in my attempt to read the Newford books in order.

I was pleasantly surprised for the most part. This was a straight-up thriller that was rocketing along and ratcheting up the tension. It seems a little unlikely that one woman would have two stalkers at the same time, but once you let go of that, this was a genuine page-turner. Frank is a textbook study of the abusive husband. Harry is terrifying in his convoluted, violent logic. Events just keep snowballing until the tension is almost unbearable.

And then.

Oh, and then.

It fell apart for me.

I almost threw my book across the room, I was so frustrated. I don't want to say anything about why, but it almost ruined the book for me. It had everything to do with some choices that were made, but it also had a little bit of what I like to call the Speed effect.

Have you ever seen that Keanu Reeves movie, Speed? You know how it should have ended at least 30 minutes before it actually did? That's what I'm talking about. If de Lint had just cut it a little shorter, this would have been a perfectly respectable thriller. But he didn't. And between the frustrating choices I mentioned above, and the cheat of an ending, I had to knock this back a full star.

Harry's meditations on Beauty got a little repetitive as well. I reasoned it away, thinking that the guy is obviously psychotic, so it makes sense that his thoughts would follow those well-worn paths, but it did get a little boring to read.

I like that de Lint chose to mention that Frank has a medical condition that causes him to act the way he does, but he never gave it a name. There's enough of a stigma attached to psychiatric disorders without authors inadvertently making it worse by seeming to imply that everyone with a particular mental illness is also a wife-beater.

I enjoyed watching Rachel get more confident and comfortable in her own skin. I always feel like de Lint does a great job portraying his female characters and Rachel is generally not an exception. Generally. She might not be my favorite, but she feels real and I understand where she's coming from.

I liked the way that de Lint worked so many women's issues into a book that really is a good thriller. Not only is there the abuse and the stalking, but there's the way that society views Rachel, as a victim who probably brought this on herself. Several characters talk about feminine beauty and the impossible ideal we are asked to live up to everyday, and the devastating consequences on our bodies and self-confidence. There are discussions about how women just have to be more careful in their day-to-day lives. A stroll home in the dark for a man can be a heart-pounding exercise in survival for a woman. There are even some career issues worked in, with some women being treated differently by their male bosses based on their looks. None of this took away from the action of the story, but it enriched it in a way that is reminiscent of de Lint's overall body of work. There's the story, and there's what you take away from the story. They both add to each other.

I don't regret reading this, I just wish that I could have read a version with an alternate ending. If you think you can overlook that, go ahead and give it a try. It really is a good book. ( )

Every time Rachel Sorensen starts a new job or moves into a new apartment, her abusive ex-husband finds her and she has to escape all over again. But one night, as he waits for her, someone else is watching Rachel at the same time. When the stranger saves Rachel once and for all, she doesn’t realize that she’s in more danger than ever.

Abuse is a difficult subject. The issues of power and control are complicated and hard to translate for outsiders. In [I’ll Be Watching You], Charles DeLint steps out of his typical urban fantasy genre and tells a frighteningly real story of abuse and obsession. DeLint takes great care in reflecting the mindset of an abused woman trying to break free. But his take on the internal workings of the abuser’s mind sets the story apart from most writers who confront the subject. The typical composition of such books is built around the singular perspective of the victim, with the abuser as a dark and incomprehensible force who keeps coming until he is destroyed in some way. And while DeLint’s abuser is eventually destroyed, the writer doesn’t only feature him as seen by the victim or by other outsiders. DeLint steps into his fractured mind and displays his warped sense of the world. When Rachel’s abusive husband is dealt with, DeLint expands his exploration of the abusive mind with Rachel’s new tormentor.

Fans of DeLint’s more popular urban fantasy may not enjoy this diversion into the world of the real, but it shows his diversity and flexibility.

The only quibble I had with the book was the superhuman capabilities DeLint endowed his villain with. It was hard to believe someone with such obsessive qualities would be able to so completely compartmentalize their life and function successfully while decompensating at the same time. The effect is to back the hard won realism out of the story.

Bottom Line: DeLint shows off a rare understanding of the abuse and succeeds well outside his genre of urban fantasy.

4 bones!!!! ( )

I was unsure, well into this book, whether I was going to like it. That is not a comment on the quality of the writing, merely on how it fit with my reading tastes. I didn't think I liked where it was going, and so I moved forward a bit reluctantly in my reading of it.

Well, somewhere along the line it drew me in and didn't let me go. This was a really clever tale of suspense, full of dark twists. It is a violent story, that's the nature of the tale, but I didn't think that the descriptions of the violence were overdone -- though the crimes were quite unpleasant. (But, then, is murder ever pleasant?)

I thought the characters got a little soap-boxy about women's issues -- abuse, society's pressures upon women to be beautiful -- and some of that dialogue didn't feel quite natural to me, but de Lint put his money where their mouths were, so to speak, and SHOWED us the damage and the issues his characters were talking about.

This was not my typical kind of Halloween read, but it certainly had its own kind of horror. ( )