John Katzenbach, The Wrong Man

The Wrong Man

John Katzenbach

Ballantine, Oct 2006, $25.95

ISBN: 0345464834

Boston art history grad student Ashley Freeman has sex with Michael O'Connell. Where she saw it as a one night, he saw it as forever. Michael obsesses over Ashley and plans to make her his though she insists she does not want to see him. He does not leave her alone being everywhere she is and running off anyone who spends time with her. He uses his computer skills to cause havoc for her divorced parents and her mother's lesbian lover as well as taking control of Ashley's life at school, her finances and in other ways.

Her loving parents try to buy him off, but Michael ignores their efforts; they try to frighten him into leaving their daughter alone, but instead he scares them with his obstinate intensity. Nothing legally works so the desperate Ashley and her family decide to go after Michael with the same fixation he applied when he devastated their lives with illegal and amoral tactics.

On the surface this may seem like an extended Fatal Attraction, but talented John Katzenbach brings his own spin to predatory obsession as Michael and Ashley's family go at it like champions meeting in a fifteen round bout. Each of the five prime players seem genuine and the reactions and feelings of Ashley's parents and the lover towards their beleaguered offspring feels real so that when the legal approaches fail, the audience will have no problem with their efforts to reverse the stalking. This is a one sitting tense thriller as readers will want to know who survived trench warfare.

Harriet Klausner