At some point, I must have read and enjoyed another book by Joy Fielding. I can't imagine why else I'd have picked this one up. The reviews were good, but I'm afraid I have to disagree. It was one of those books that you finish just to prove to yourself that you're right about where it's going.
Part of the problem is, of course, that the book is a bit out of date. By now, the themes that probably seemed original back in 1990 have become so outworn and predictable that the book feels like "Exhibit A" for the genre. Nonetheless, the story was likely predictable even when it was new.
The heroine, Jane, is such a pathetic excuse for a person that it's hard to feel much sympathy for her. And by the end of the novel, when you know what has happened, she's less likable, not more.
Given the time in which it was written, one might expect the novel to have a fairly solid grounding in the etiology of certain criminal acts and in the legalities that arise in the story. On both accounts, the plot falls short. I can't explain without giving away too much, but suffice it to say there would be more than one professional criminally liable if the story were true and the psychology behind the central cause of the plot is paper thin. There are also some continuity errors that an editor should have caught. In addition, the antagonist is so over-the-top as to be almost comical.
Finally, Fielding's writing was a problem for me. She is very long-winded about things like the decor in a room. What could have been covered in a sentence or two will take a page, with the result that the story moves along very, very slowly. She also spends far too much time on the inner maundering of the protagonist. When your response to the main character is that she should just shut up already, there's a problem. By the time I was less than halfway through, I was skimming whole pages of description and mental anguish just to get to the next actual event in the story.
I realize that many people have enjoyed this book and I'm sorry to be such a pill about it, but the fact is, if I'd liked it any less, I'd not have bothered finishing it. I would, however, consider reading one of Fielding's later novels as I'd be interested to see her development as a writer. She certainly has talent, but it's unpolished in this early work.