Meg Castaldo
The Foreigner
MTV
2001
A lot of popular modern-day mystery novels and thrillers start out with an ordinary person being drawn in to an intrigue and then trying to solve the puzzle. This well-written mystery has its main character only dimly aware of the mystery until nearly the conclusion.
What happened that winter still keeps me up at night. It was the sort of thing no one should ever have to go through. Jan turned out to be a bigger foreigner than I'd ever imagined. My oldest friend, Kyle, became someone I hardly knew....
And me? You'd think this mess I'm about to lay out would've opened my eyes. I guess it did. But not in the cathartic way you read about in self-help books
28 year old Alex Orlando from California gets the opportunity to housesit for her Uncle Carmi in New York City for a few weeks in January while he vacations in Puerto Rico. It turns out that her old friend Kyle is also in New York, possibly involved in dealing drugs. His girlfriend Yassi, from Algeria, seems to suit him well, although by the time Alex meets her, they are on the outs.
Uncle Carmi has warned her against a number of things, such as riding on the subway and talking with his neighbor, Christian, a Swedish architect in the apartment next door. Of course, within a matter of days, Alex has violated all the ground rules and finds she actually likes Christian, although he is something of a mystery. He seems to have a lot of cash, and keeps odd hours.
Then Jan, with whom she had an amorous relationship during a trip to Belgium, makes a visit.
Other than the job, which consumes only part of her time, Alex finds she is having fun. Jan wants her to travel back to Europe with him. The mood changes
when one of her new friends turns up dead, and all of a sudden, it seems that the entire cast of characters knows each one of the others, if only tangentially, creating suspicions about who is telling the truth. The police detective on the case introduces a new level of suspicion--Alex originally met him when he was undercover, playing a role.Alex is well-drawn as an ordinary person dropped into the middle of all this. This is an enjoyable mystery with plenty of suspense and nothing too graphic, although you might not want to spend any time in New York after reading it!
only dimly aware of the mystery until nearly the conclusion.This book is also available at
Amazon.co.uk
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