Postcards from a Stranger – Imogen Clark

I enjoyed this book in the main. The writing was quite pacy and the characterisation seemed to evolve naturally. There wasn’t a point when I wanted to stop reading.

Abusive relationships so often ‘run in families’ and I can understand Cara’s reluctance to look too closely into her family’s past. I thought the author handled these aspects well and the period pieces rang true with me.

I did find the descriptions of Cara’s father a little pejorative and unsympathetic, long before the mystery started to untangle. He is hidden behind a handy blanket of ‘dementia’ – there are no sudden moments of clarity for example – and we feel badly towards him long before our suspicions are raised as to what he might have done.

I also felt that Cara’s best friend Beth and her new husband were two-dimensional characters, their actions predictable and I had little patience with or interest in either of them.

I thought the postcards would play an ongoing part in the story, once they’d been discovered and interpreted in the way that they were. By the end, they seemed superfluous, and this was disappointing to me; I think they could have been used more effectively as devices in the story’s ongoing reveal.

My main issue with the book was the ending itself which proved to be an anti-climax and descent into a bit of a schmalz-fest. I suddenly thought – about two thirds out – that the ending might cleverly arrive via a different character in the book. I think that would have provided the twist the book required.

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