This is quite unlike me, but I actually went and borrowed another Nicci French book after finishing The Unheard. I’m not sure why I did it, because I’ve got so much on the TBR (and physical books to read too!) but I guess I was really in the mood for a thriller. And that may not have been the best decision because now I’m tempted to read the remaining seven books in this Frieda Klein series.

Blue Monday is a mystery-thriller starring psychotherapist Frieda Klein. When she takes a client, Alan, from her former mentor, she doesn’t think much of it except what it means that her mentor can no longer handle clients. But Alan dreams of a red-headed little boy as his own and this dream-boy is disturbingly similar to a red-headed little boy that has just gone missing. Frieda finds herself unable to let go of this connection and she’s pulled into not one, but two missing children’s cases.

Frieda was an interesting character. She has got so much on her plate – her clients, an issue with her lover, her family’s problems, and someone made a hole in the wall of her office. All this comes with people and we’re pretty much introduced to all the people in Frieda’s life. It’s not too overwhelming, although with so many characters it’s natural that a few of them are more memorable than others, and I suspect most of them will appear in the next book. While I liked how this gave us a feeling of how overwhelming Frieda’s life is, it also means that there are a lot of subplots that aren’t properly dealt with – I hope this means that there’s a larger narrative arc over the course of the series or I’ll be disappointed.

And now, the plot. I really, really want to give spoilers but I won’t, but bear with me as I talk about how I can’t decide if I like the ending or not. When I read mysteries, I expect certain tropes to be fulfilled and one of them was not done and that frustrated me. On the other hand, I peeked the rest of the series’ blurbs (bad idea, by the way, they contain spoilers) and it seems like this book is setting up events in the later books – so am I frustrated by the fact that this is a “first in series” instead of a “standalone first in series”? I don’t know, I need to read more books to find out. I could end up loving how the authors seeded things in book one and developed it so that it reached a climax in book 8, or I could end up feeling like everything was a waste of time. At this point, everything is up in the air.

So yeah, I can’t give a judgement on this book yet. I did enjoy the game of cat and mouse, and on the whole I like Frieda as a character, but I am still very undecided about how I feel about the ending of the book. But I guess this means the authors did their job well because now, I really, really want to read the next book in this series.