Rant Review: "7 jours à River Falls" by Alexis Aubenque

Quick Summary

Type: Novel, book 1 of River Falls series

Genre: Thriller, suspense

Back Cover: "Sarah Kent, issue d'une famille modeste, est une étudiante modèle qui mène une vie paisible, parmi l'élite de l'université de River Falls, une petite ville des Rocheuses.

Pourtant tout va changer, un matin de printemps, quand Amy Paich et Lucy Barton, ses deux meilleures amies des années de lycée, sont retrouvées atrocement mutilées dans la forêt toute proche. Or, deux jours auparavant, Sarah avait reçu une lettre, plutôt étrange, de Lucy et Amy... Le monde de Sarah bascule dans l'horreur. Sera-t-elle la prochaine victime du tueur ? Le shérif Mike Logan, aidé de Jessica Hurley, son ex-petite amie, une profileuse réputée, est chargé de l'enquête.

Tous deux croient très vite être sur la bonne piste. Mais ils ignorent que leur adversaire les manipule avec une redoutable perversité....

Sarah Kent, born to a modest family, is a model student living a peaceful life among the elite of her university at River Falls, a small town in the Rockies.

However, everything changes one spring morning when Amy Paich and Lucy Barton, her high school best friends, are found horribly mutilated in the nearby forest. What's more, two days earlier, Sarah had received a strange letter from Lucy and Amy...Sarah's world is shaken. Will she be the killer's next victim? Sheriff Mike Logan, helped by his ex-girlfriend and famous profiler Jessica Hurley, is in charge of the investigation.

Both soon believe to be on the right track. But they don't know that their adversary is manipulating them with cunning perversity."

Read Time: 2 days

Rating: 1 star

Review

Oh boy. Where do I start?

So, a little background. I decided that I needed to read a little more in French. It's been a couple of months since I did (I read La gloire de mon père in January and haven't read in French since), so I wanted something easy to read to get me out of that slump. My mother and I have also been running out of things to talk about, so a thriller/murder mystery - something we both enjoy reading - felt like a good idea. And to that end, this book was a good read because we talked a lot about how terrible it was.

I have a lot of things to say, but unfortunately I was camping when I read this book so I wasn't able to take full notes of everything that was wrong with this book. Usually, I'd be able to remember most of the issues, but there was something wrong on every single page, so that is not the case with this book.

WARNING: Not only does this review contain massive spoilers, the more I write, the more I remember non-sensical details that bugged the crap out of me. There's a good chance of this review getting unhinged real quick.

The book starts with two young brothers running away through the forest after witnessing a man dump two bodies in the lake. So far, so good. One brother gets lost in the woods, the other is hunted down by the killer and run over. So far, so good. I'm not even going to go in depth on how the kids don't talk like kids, but talk as adults. I get it. Writing children's dialogue is hard.

But then we move on to the search for the missing kid. We're introduced to Morgan Finley, a sixty-year-old father to "two sons dead in Iraq" (p17). This man is also a staunch, far-right Republican, and the year is, at the latest, 2008. Keep this in mind as you read the next quote:

"He obviously had nothing to do with their deaths, but in his heart, he couldn't help but blame himself. He should have convinced them that this war was just a big scam. An American shouldn't have to fight to defend Muslims." (p18)

Now, the author did get one thing right about Republicans in 2008. They were - and still are - fairly Islamophobic. But in this one quote, Aubenque betrays himself. He has shown himself to be ignorant of both Republicans and Republican sentiment to the war in 2008. Republicans were heavily in favor of the war. They didn't see it as a scam, or as Americans fighting to defend Muslims. They saw it as protecting America's interests, and preventing Iraq from being able to use weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) on American soil. No, that wasn't ever a real threat, but Americans - especially Republicans - sure thought it was.

You know who did think the war in Iraq was a scam from its earliest inception? That's right, the French. The French criticized Americans for going into the war, which is why Americans had to deal with 'freedom fries' for a few years [even though a), they could have just called them 'fries', and b) fries aren't even a French creation. Fries are Belgian.] The point is, Aubenque is betraying a very franco-centric way of thinking in this book that is supposedly set in the US. Over and over, he assumes the worst of his American characters, relies heavily on the most negative stereotypes of all Americans, and can't even be bothered to look at a map of Washington.

So now, let's talk about geography, because as is this book's trademark, things get a little confusing. Let's look at a map:

So, the star is Seattle, where the FBI field office is. The mountain range in the northeast corner of Washington represents the only place in Washington in which you can find the Rockies. And the pine tree just south of Seattle, right by Olympia, is where you can find giant sequoias in Washington. This is where my mother and I assumed River Falls was located. However, the back cover suggests that River Falls is in the Rockies, clear across the state, far from both Seattle and sequoias. But then it also takes a few hours to get to the Rockies from River Falls? Based on Logan's trip to the cabin in the Rockies, River Falls is close enough to the Rockies that if he leaves in early afternoon, he can be there and back before sundown. So I'd place River Falls at about three hours away from the Rockies. Unfortunately, Olympia and Tacoma (which is about the furthest northeast you can find forests of giant sequoias) are five, maybe six hours away from the Rockies. So basically, River Falls is a magical place south of Seattle, three hours from the Rockies, where giant sequoias grow despite not being in their preferred climate.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's go back to Morgan Finley. Morgan Finley is our first introduction to something that's a bit of a theme in this book. For context, this man - along with half the town - is in the woods, searching for the missing boy. I like to think that any normal person, no matter their political affiliation, would be thinking only of the boy's well-being. You would hope that anyone would be thinking 'Please God, let this kid be found alive' or something to that effect. But no, Morgan Finley is thinking 'if I find this kid, I'm the local hero'.

When I first read this, I was frankly insulted on behalf of Republicans because I thought that Aubenque was being so ungenerous with their depiction. Little did I know, this is just how Aubenque's characters think. There is an obsession in River Falls with being the local hero. It shows up time and again, and as it turns out, does not discriminate on political affiliation. All characters are equally awful. Morgan Finley's depiction, however, was particularly insulting because he's thinking about this immediately after having found the unconscious, badly hurt boy.

Anyway, Morgan Finley finds the boy, he's the local hero, and the comatose boy is rushed to the hospital. You can officially forget about them because they're barely mentioned from this point on. That's right, they brought nothing to the story whatsoever.

Now we're introduced to Sarah Kent, a college student at the local university (we're gonna be discussing this university soon, so get ready). Anyway, Sarah has taken a shower and comes out to discover that her clothes are missing! She might have to run back to her dorm room naked! At the last second, she's surprised by the 'mean girl' Jennifer, who says something cryptic about theft and gives Sarah back her clothes. My thoughts: first of all, the scene was completely unnecessary. It did not have to be described in full detail, and frankly, any prank could have served for the author's purposes (or he could have cut the character of Jennifer entirely, she was not necessary). Also, besides this one prank, it turns out that Jennifer has done absolutely nothing to deserve being called the 'mean girl'. In fact, Jennifer gets pretty badly bullied by most of the other people at this university. Finally, the fact that this scene depicted sexual humiliation, along with later scenes depicting sexual assault and the deep humiliation of women, makes me a little concerned about the author. This was just the first of many concerning, humiliating scenes of women that did not need to be described in such excruciating detail and frankly didn't serve any purpose in the story besides to humiliate the women involved.

Next we're introduced to Leslie Callwin, the reporter. If you feel like we're getting introduced to a lot of characters all at once, don't worry. We're getting introduced to way more than I'm telling you about because I'm leaving out the limitless number of sergeants constantly being introduced. Anyway, back to Leslie Callwin. She's a small-town journalist dreaming of going to Seattle. She'll be more important later, because she's a woman so of course we have to degrade her at some point in the story. Just not quite yet. Here's the thing about Leslie, though: she may very well be the best investigative force in this town because she often finds things out before the cops, and if she doesn't, she learns them soon after because the cops in this town can't keep their damn mouths shut.

If I hadn't said it already (I have) there are so many characters that are introduced and then completely forgotten.

Also, the author has a strange fixation on the model car every character drives. It doesn't suffice to say that a character drives a Jeep or a Subaru (already strange) but it's a Cherokee or an Outback. It gets a little strange as it goes on.

In the next chapter, we go back to Sarah's POV, where she's worrying about being late and "being summoned" again. Being summoned to what? For academic misconduct? For being late to or missing class at a university? There is no university I know of that refers anyone for academic misconduct based on tardiness or truancy. It's such a strange hang-up. Frankly, the author's idea of university makes me very nervous to (possibly) attend grad school in France. Anyway, this is followed by some uncomfortable slut-shaming and victim blaming of the two victims, and we learn that the two victims were (naturally) Sarah's former best friends. Then, in another strange this-doesn't-happen-at-university moment, everyone in the entire school (2800 people) is gathered at the football field so the university president can announce the death and identification of the girls. Then classes are canceled for the day for everyone. Now, when I was in high school (2600 people) we had a couple of deaths - one hit-and-run, one suicide. Their deaths were announced and we observed a moment of silence, but the administration never thought of canceling classes. Just recently, there was a serial killer loose at William's university, and while the university implemented a curfew, they also did not cancel classes. So once again, this is not realistic.

At this point, we learn that Sarah received a letter, supposedly from the victims, shortly before they died. Now, at this point, you might be thinking, 'she should turn that over to the police', right? Wrong. Her horrible boyfriend Brian (she's actually his affair partner, he has a fiancé, and oh - he hits her) convinces her she absolutely shouldn't tell the police about the note because then she becomes the prime suspect. First of all, Brian is conservative in 2008 - he would be much more trusting of the police. Once again, the author's anti-American bias is leaking through. Second, this is so clearly a dumb decision used to drive forward the plot. It's very annoying. Third, she does go to report it, chickens out, and then throws the outcast goth girl under the bus. Seriously? How much of a petty coward can a single person be? And what does that add to the story?

We're back to Sheriff Logan's POV. We learn that apparently he's the sheriff of just River Falls, and the nearby town of Silver Town also has a sheriff. That's not how that works! Sheriffs are for the county, while individual towns have police forces if they're big enough. Unless a city is big enough to be its own county (e.g. San Francisco) individual towns in the same county (and it sure seems River Falls and Silver Town are in the same county) do not have their own sheriffs.

Now we go on to meet FBI Special Agent Jessica Hurley, supposedly one of the best criminal profilers in the entire United States. Apparently Logan and Hurley used to be seriously involved until Logan mysteriously moved away, practically ghosting Hurley. Will this reason ever be revealed? No. This is never resolved. But Logan does invite Hurley in for a cognac - a cognac? What small-town sheriff offers cognac instead of beer or whiskey? If you're going to set your novel in small-town America, do your research on small-town America!!

And while we're on the subject of small-town America, let's talk about religion. Now, I've been to many small towns in America, and oftentimes, at the entrance of the town, there's a big board with at least half a dozen (usually double digits, though) churches that you can attend. Because, in small-town America, almost everyone is a churchgoer. So then why does every character in this novel, especially Logan, hate Christians? Also, why is there only church, and why is it Catholic? If a small town is going to have only one church, it's going to be some kind of Protestant. And by the way, in my grandparents' small town in France (~14000 people), there are two Catholic churches, at least one fundamentalist church, and at least one mosque. And that's in France, a country that hates religion. A similarly sized small town in the US should have at least twice that number of religious institutions.

Let's circle back to the plot for a minute so I can talk about one of the most outrageous sequences of the book. One of the girls had a boyfriend/pimp who is missing, and Leslie Callwin goes to his apartment to interview the neighbor. The awful neighbor, upon being interviewed, decides that of course the boyfriend is the killer, so he calls the police. The police decide that of course the boyfriend is the killer, so they all drop everything to go tear his place apart (never mind that a real judge would never sign off on that warrant).

Jessica Hurley also goes down to check out this guy's apartment. Her taxi driver is a Pakistani guy, who is a Muslim, but also wears a turban (like a Sikh). They have a very uncomfortable conversation in which a lot of racist things are said (by Hurley) and since we're supposed to like Hurley, I don't think she was meant to come off as racist.

Anyway, turns out that the boyfriend had been kidnapped by the actual killer. But instead of killing the boyfriend, the killer lets him go. The boyfriend has no clue what's going on, until he hears on the radio that he's wanted for murder of the two girls. He goes into town to his apartment, where Hurley is still hanging out. The awful neighbor scares him off, setting off a massive chase. Somehow, this small town has a helicopter, which Logan commandeers. The TV station also has a helicopter, so they're also following the chase. Two cops, named Spike and Portnoy, are the cops who spot the boyfriend and start the chase. Hurley, of course, wants to be a hero like everyone else in River Falls, so she also joins the chase. Somehow, she ends up going the wrong way on the highway, causing a massive accident. Of course, she faces no consequences for this horrible action.

Meanwhile, Spike and Portnoy continue chasing the boyfriend into the woods as it starts raining. The boyfriend loses control of his car and crashes. The two cops stop their car, and Spike gets out to check on the boyfriend. Naturally, Spike wants to be the hero, but oh no! - the boyfriend is dead! So to be seen as the hero, Spike pulls out his gun and shoots the dead guy. But wait - the boyfriend wasn't dead, and when the bullet grazes him, he wakes up. So now Spike decides to actually, for real kill the boyfriend. Because obviously, the boyfriend did it, even though they have found literally no evidence to confirm that.

And naturally, Spike faces no consequences for this. In fact, people are thrilled the boyfriend is dead. Even though there was no proof that he was the murderer, everyone supports the death penalty and everyone is glad they didn't even need a trial to get the guy what he deserved. Even the "Democrats" in this book make a point of repeatedly saying that they're Democrats but they support the death penalty so they're glad the boyfriend is dead.

So the killer - Donald is his name - is off the hook now. Except he still wants to kill Sarah. At the same time, Hurley - who is now not convinced that the boyfriend was the killer - continues investigating. A little too late for that, but whatever. She eventually has a heart to heart with Callwin, who tearfully admits that she's been prostituting herself to Spike for information about the investigation. From that, Hurley learns why Sarah might be a target, and so naturally Logan goes alone into the Rockies to interview Sarah. I mean, they don't want to act too rashly now that they have the actual murderer's name.

Anyway, Logan finds Sarah's friends and boyfriend all dead (except for, like, two). Sarah is being tortured by Donald. Logan actually deals with him pretty easily, but one of the surviving friends stabs Logan. Logan is dying, but not before saving Sarah. But of course, Sarah and the surviving friend are able to call for help in time to save Logan.

This was a shit book written by a guy who has never stepped foot in the United States and who really should not be writing books about a country and a people he hates. I seriously, genuinely cannot stress how shit this book was. I'm sorry I wasted $2.99 on it. I would give it less than 1 star, but on the other hand, it gave my mother and I something to talk about (rant about) for a weekend, so at least it served its purpose, I guess. Still, I think I would have preferred a better book to talk about.