An enjoyable slow-burn mystery very relevant to today
Anatomy of a Scandal is about much more than the blurb - a well-liked politician has an affair with one of his staff that then turns in to a rape accusation. Kate is the barrister appointed to prosecute him, and she accepts the case with gusto. However, even her best friend Ali can't help but be on James' side a little bit when she considers how handsome he is.
And that's what so much of the book is about - the opinions of other people and how we react to their actions. James is untouchable, protected by beauty and money, charming enough to disarm Sophie and turn her from a confident young woman into the scandalized wife forced to stand by her husband as he details his love for another woman who now accuses him of rape. Kate, who sees through the veneer but knows she has her work cut out for her in convincing women who want to believe this couldn't happen to them. Olivia, who some think must be lying because she liked rough sex before. The bruise James left on her breast is just a love bite; maybe she tore her panties herself; she shouldn't have gotten into the elevator if she didn't want to have sex in it, even if it was the middle of the day at work.
Kate is only one narrator of this tale, other pieces being told by James himself; his wife, Sophie; and Holly, a student at Oxford at the same time as Sophie and James. A POV that might seem to be missing is Olivia, the woman accusing James of rape in the present day; however, there was already a lot of flip-flopping around with narrators and timelines that I don't think we lost too much by not actually seeing her POV. I was concerned for awhile that we had too many narrators, but ultimately I think that each was crucial in making this a well-rounded story.
One thing that I struggled with in the book was how specific this was to England. I think I read quite a bit from British authors and watch a lot of BBC programming, but there was a lot that got talked about here that went over my head. This isn't the author's fault, obviously, and I'm trying not to fault the book for it, but I think it inadvertently dampened the reading experience for me. There was a lot of slang used that I didn't really understand and it just jumbled up the story when I had to stop to google what a 'lever arch file' was (binder).
This slow-burn mystery wasn't quite the type of thriller I usually look for but should be very interesting to those who enjoy courtroom drama. The final conversations and revelations that take place in the last third of the book are heart-pounding, all too reminiscent of what we think might actually be happening today to politicians, friends, and family members that we know and love.
And that's what so much of the book is about - the opinions of other people and how we react to their actions. James is untouchable, protected by beauty and money, charming enough to disarm Sophie and turn her from a confident young woman into the scandalized wife forced to stand by her husband as he details his love for another woman who now accuses him of rape. Kate, who sees through the veneer but knows she has her work cut out for her in convincing women who want to believe this couldn't happen to them. Olivia, who some think must be lying because she liked rough sex before. The bruise James left on her breast is just a love bite; maybe she tore her panties herself; she shouldn't have gotten into the elevator if she didn't want to have sex in it, even if it was the middle of the day at work.
Kate is only one narrator of this tale, other pieces being told by James himself; his wife, Sophie; and Holly, a student at Oxford at the same time as Sophie and James. A POV that might seem to be missing is Olivia, the woman accusing James of rape in the present day; however, there was already a lot of flip-flopping around with narrators and timelines that I don't think we lost too much by not actually seeing her POV. I was concerned for awhile that we had too many narrators, but ultimately I think that each was crucial in making this a well-rounded story.
One thing that I struggled with in the book was how specific this was to England. I think I read quite a bit from British authors and watch a lot of BBC programming, but there was a lot that got talked about here that went over my head. This isn't the author's fault, obviously, and I'm trying not to fault the book for it, but I think it inadvertently dampened the reading experience for me. There was a lot of slang used that I didn't really understand and it just jumbled up the story when I had to stop to google what a 'lever arch file' was (binder).
This slow-burn mystery wasn't quite the type of thriller I usually look for but should be very interesting to those who enjoy courtroom drama. The final conversations and revelations that take place in the last third of the book are heart-pounding, all too reminiscent of what we think might actually be happening today to politicians, friends, and family members that we know and love.