Mystery/Thriller Reading Friends discussion

Segment four to the end, chapters 25-30 for discussion of The Plot by Jean Hanff Korelitz. I believe this will cover part four of the book. What did you think about it?
Spoilers Welcome on this topic. If the first to post, please briefly summarize to guide the discussion. Thanks!

I did enjoy this book to a certain degree and not sure why really as I thought a lot of it was quite annoying. For a start, there wasn't anyone to like in it and one of the main problems was that we weren't told what this amazing original idea for a story was until fairly well into the novel. It had been built up so much and was nothing special at all. I was surprised to see many people describing the end as a fantastic twist that came out of nowhere, because as soon as the person in question appeared in the book I thought it was pretty obvious who it was. The author has written a quite different book and made it easy to keep track of the different time lines, past, present and fictional. Over all it didn't work for me, but I did read to the end and look forward to see what others thought of it. I really enjoyed my first monthly read with this group thank you.

Part IV--

Chapter 25

Jake is going to Athens, Georgia. He and Anne argue about it---she doesn’t want him to go. He could get hurt wandering around and talking to people. He says he will get hurt if he doesn’t go. He invites her to come along, but she has to return to Seattle to finish up some things and her boss asked her to go now. On the plane ride down Jake marvels at his good fortune in finding Alex.

Chapter 26

Jake goes to the college and to his surprise he is able to find some basic information about Rose, enough to know she was enrolled there but is no longer. Next he goes to the real estate attorney who represented her in the sale of her house (the attorney Jake had talked to previously was the local attorney he had to hire). The minute he says his name the attorney says he isn’t able to talk to Jake because of client-attorney privilege. This tells Jake that the attorney is Rose’s attorney and is aware of his connection to her and he says so. Jake had done some research and found out about a couple of run-ins the attorney had with the law, and tries to threaten him but the lawyer doesn’t fold. Jack leaves him with a message for Rose: leave him alone. Jake feels empowered. Rose so far has been in control, but now he is the one in control. He is not going to let her mess up his life.

Jake visits Rose’s last address, a seedy apartment complex. He pretends to be looking for apartments for his daughter and mentions his cousin’s daughter lived there -- Rose Parker. The rental agent came after Rose left but the cleaning lady Carol might have known her. She shows Jake a few apartments and then when they're done he realizes he’s learned nothing and can’t leave yet. He confesses that he is really there for his “cousin” who hasn’t heard from Rose and is worried. The agent introduces him to Carol who remembers Rose. She’s sorry to hear she is missing after all the things that have happened to her. Jake probes about Rose’s mother’s death and is shocked to learn when she died they were on their way to college, camping out in a tent because they couldn’t afford motels, and the tent caught on fire. Rose got out; her mother didn’t. She was buried in northern Georgia. Jake wonders why she didn't return to Vermont to be buried with her relatives. Carol sarcastically says she can’t imagine why she didn’t think to ask that. Jake shows Carol a picture he’d taken of Rose in the HS yearbook and asks if that is Rose. Carol says with relief that it is not.

CRIB pp245-246
Samantha continues the fiction of Maria at OSU, giving updates to folks in the town. Samantha sells her house and leaves.

Chapter 27 to the end

Jake phones Anne to say that he is extending his trip to travel north to find the campground where Rose’s mother dies. She is adamant that he not continue. What does he hope to gain? It’s dangerous! He has to locate her to make her stop the attacks.

Jake googles “Rose Parker + campground + tent fire” and finds a small news blurb with the location. He drives north and stops at a general store for directions. The owner happens to also be a volunteer firefighter who was called to the tent fire. His brother is there and offers to drive Jake to the site. The “sister” (this is what Rose called herself) was distraught. She’d gotten up to go to the loo and may have knocked over the propane heater on her way out. There was no help for miles so the tent was completely demolished and Diana Parker died.

Jake offers to take Mike the driver and the coroner Roy out to dinner to ask more questions and thank them for their help. He asks pointed questions about the scene and the “sister.” The coroner had no reason to question the death or the sister. There were no relatives so she didn't want anyone else contacted. There was a fund for the indigent and they were surprised that she accepted the local burial. Jake shows Roy a picture of Rose. Who’s that? He asks. The person you know is her mother, Diana. Roy finally says “I know what’s going on here.” He remembers the plot of Crib because his wife’s book club read it and she told him about this. He thinks Jake is trying to make this case into that plot. He and Mike leave in disgust.

Jake drives to the cemetery and finds the grave of Maria Parker. Jake works out what happened. He sends Anna a picture of the gravestone with the name scratched out and the name of the true occupant replacing it. He’ll explain when he gets home. Jake imagines writing the whole story of the truth behind Crib. It could be a blockbuster.

CRIB page 280

Samantha enrolls in OSU as Rose Parker and thrills at her new life, 18 years delayed. She revels in the classes, the quizzes, etc. At night she continues her job processing health claims. She comes home one day to find Gab, Maria’s old girlfriend, on the doorstep. Gab got Maria’s address from campus (what!?!?!). She’s passing through on her way to California and thought it would be nice to see Maria, to get closure. Samantha says she has a new girlfriend and Gab says that’s okay. Maria is in class but should be home soon, Samantha tells her. She suggests Gab stay for dinner; she’ll pick up a pizza. On the way she learns that Gab doesn’t have any relatives and no one is waiting for her in California. When they get home Gab sets the table for 3 while Samantha crushes peanuts and hides them under the oily pieces of pepperoni (have we been told that Gab has a severe peanut allergy?)

Jake arrives home to an empty apartment, but Anna has left soup on the stove and a bottle of win for their dinner. She arrives home and serves him the soup -- she isn’t having any. She is leaving for Seattle that night, not tomorrow as she had first told him. Jake tells her what he found and shows her the picture of the real Rose Parker, and unfurls the tale he has worked out about what happened to her. Anna asks questions and it is clear that Jake has some sympathy for Diana, even as he knows what she’s done is wrong, he can see why she did it. Almost like she’s a psychopath. Jake is starting to feel sluggish and we the readers realize that he is being drugged. Anna finally reveals herself. She is Diana Parker. She left the campsite where she killed her daughter, and enrolled in college in her place. She makes up for lost time and is enjoying every minute. She reflects on how cold her daughter was -- she never showed any affection for Diana and was independent even as a child. One day she hears two women discussing the plot of a book they just read and Diana is shaken by the similarity to her own story. She buys the book and reads it. She sees from the author’s bio that he taught at Ripley College and works out the connection to her brother, who she despised. He was the favorite growing up, he could get countless women pregnant but he was the golden boy. She on the other hand was forced to raise a baby she didn’t want. She caused the carbon monoxide death of her parents and returned later to do the job on Evan, causing his overdose. She thought she’d gotten rid of any evidence of his story--papers, computer, etc.

The rest was all her doing; the invitation to be interviewed on the radio, coffee afterward, keeping in touch, coming to NY, etc. She has put Valium in the soup and plans to leave him there to die. She’ll text him from Seattle and when she doesn’t hear back after a day or so she’ll phone his mother in concern. She erases the photographs from his phone and composes a suicide note. She leaves and things happen as she intends.

The epilogue is Maria being interviewed some time after Jake’s death. His followup novel is a success and the movie of Crib is about to be released. Maria is getting on with her life, but she is going to devote some of the proceeds of the book to suicide prevention. And she might even become a writer.

The End

Shell wrote: "I did enjoy this book to a certain degree and not sure why really as I thought a lot of it was quite annoying. For a start, there wasn't anyone to like in it and one of the main problems was that w..."

Shell I share some of your opinions on this book. I read some reviews on Audible and they must have been sorted from unfavorable to favorable because even tho this got about a 4.5 rating out of 5 the first few were scathing--simplistic, figured out who the culprit was halfway through (like you said). So sadly I was looking to see if I could figure it out halfway through (I never do) and sure enough when Anna showed up I thought "huh." A little too good to be true given Jake's personality. I wasn't fully confident in her because I couldn't explain the age difference. If she was Evan's sister than she would have been a good deal younger than Jake. The author did spend a lot of time talking about his fascination with her gray hair, but I still couldn't square it. I remember Jake told someone he was 38 but I couldn't remember if that was Alice early on or Anna when they went out for coffee. I guess if it was the latter it made sense.

You make two other points, about the amazing original idea and the twist. I said in an earlier post that I wondered if the author was actually going to tell us this amazing idea, and as we went along I was glad to see she chose to do so. It would have been interesting if she'd never revealed it. I kept wondering what could be so fantastic and when it came it was... okay. A decent twist but nothing spectacular. I could think of a couple of plot twists in fiction.... Presumed Innocent, The Sixth Sense (movie), even recently The Perfect Patient... that were truly mindblowing. This one, not so much. But it would have been hard to match such a build-up I guess.

One minor point: twice in the book someone is able to get personal information on college students from the campus administration, which I found to be hard to believe given privacy concerns, but maybe this took place a while ago. Jake was able to find Rose's address in Athens from the college she attended (I think) and Gab was definitely able to get Maria's address from the college she attended.

I was sad at the outcome of the book. I didn't love Jake, he was pretty self-involved, but I admired his dogged pursuit of the solution to his quandry, and i thought it was sad that he died in the end and that Diana/Anna was triumphant. I kept wondering if there would be another twist where someone would burst in to save the day. but there was no one to do so and I knew it. i just didn't want Diana to get away with murder.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "You make two other points, about the amazing original idea and the twist. I said in an earlier post that I wondered if the author was actually going to tell us this amazing idea, and as we went alo..."

ok, what I thought would happen did- pretty good for not reading the book, right? LOL
since I only read the summaries after starting the book and putting it down, I was a little confused sometimes with who was who, but as soon as anna showed up, you just knew she had to be manipulating everything. thanks for such great detailed summaries, carol.

Thanks Sherry, glad you liked them. Maybe I should become a writer, LOL.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "Thanks Sherry, glad you liked them. Maybe I should become a writer, LOL."

lol you should! I'm sure we could find a story for you to "borrow"

Shell: It's great you enjoyed your first group read with us. I hope you will find another one that interests you, even past ones. (Found from the group bookshelf)

When I finished this book I waited a bit and thought about it, and decided I would give it more stars than I had expected to during much of the book; and like you I am not definitively sure why.
Jake was not very likeable, and frequently getting inside his head, was quite unpleasant, but in many ways quite revealing.
I think casual, occasional readers may see twists in popular books as exciting and new because of fewer or no mystery thriller books to compare.

Shell wrote: "I did enjoy this book to a certain degree and not sure why really as I thought a lot of it was quite annoying. For a start, there wasn't anyone to like in it and one of the main problems was that what we weren't told what this amazing original idea for a story was until fairly well into the novel. It had been built up so much and was nothing special at all. I was surprised to see many people describing the end as a fantastic twist .."

Carol: This bothered me too. The access to address and other personal information, especially of college students seemed unlikely. Then on the other hand, Jake was somewhat inept at research and strangely uninterested in figuring out more than superficial details of his student's death before he wrote the book.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "One minor point: twice in the book someone is able to get personal information on college students from the campus administration, which I found to be hard to believe given privacy concerns, but ma..."

Carol: re Jake's fate.
I was sad at Jake's end too, he was not likeable, but on the other hand he didn't set out to hurt anyone when he wrote the book and, as you stated, his dogged pursuit was admirable (though self serving to keep from being outed and eventually to stay alive).
I didn't admire his keeping the situation from his wife (which seemed impossible frankly) and I thought he should have come clean to the publisher and legal team (would that have made a difference in the end perhaps?)
Mainly I kept wondering if he hadn't pursued finding Evan Parker and then his family and story -- if Anna would have just taken all of his money and left him to his next book and possible future as an author of more books. I suppose not, but it would have been another path.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "I was sad at the outcome of the book. I didn't love Jake, he was pretty self-involved, but I admired his dogged pursuit of the solution to his quandry, and i thought it was sad that he died in the end and that Diana/Anna was triumphant. I kept wondering if there would be another twist where someone would burst in to save the day. but there was no one to do so and I knew it. i just didn't want Diana to get away with murder."

Ann wrote: "Mainly I kept wondering if he hadn't pursued finding Evan Parker and then his family and story -- if Anna would have just taken all of his money and left him to his next book and possible future as an author of more books. I suppose not, but it would have been another path. ..."

That's an interesting question, Ann. I'm thinking she would have killed him anyway; she really didn't want to be married to him and I'm not sure what she would have gotten in a divorce. She was greedy and thought she deserved recompense for the strain he'd "put her through," I'm thinking. Plus she could never have been assured that he wouldn't have picked up the pursuit some other time in the future and I think she would have grown tired of wondering and watching.

Carol: Yeah, I think you are right, it was mainly a thought I had while trying to see if there was a way Jake could have gotten out of the situation he found himself in.
Anna/ Diana probably was not likely to stop her killing spree with Jake. What a cold calculating woman. I get confused with Jake's Samantha character and the real Diana - I think his treatment of her was much kinder. I felt sorry for the fictional version. And I guess I felt sorry for Jake being duped by Anna and thinking she loved him. Not only was she cold, but she was quite skilled at deception. She fooled a lot of people along the way.

Carol/Bonadie wrote: "That's an interesting question, Ann. I'm thinking she would have killed him anyway; she really didn't want to be married to him and I'm not sure what she would have gotten in a divorce. She was greedy and thought she deserved recompense for the strain he'd "put her through," I'm thinking. "