Sign in with Facebook
Loading...
4th out of 42 books
—
13 voters
Blue Monday (Frieda Klein #1)
by
Nicci French
Als der 5-jährige Matthew verschwindet, geht ein Aufschrei durch London. In den Zeitungen erscheint sein Bild – und die Psychotherapeutin Frieda Klein kann es nicht fassen: Matthew gleicht bis ins Detail dem Wunschkind eines verzweifelten kinderlosen Patienten von ihr. Ist dieser Mann ein brutaler Psychopath? Warum hat sie das als Therapeutin nicht schon vorher bemerkt? Zu...more
Hardcover, 416 pages
Published
June 10th 2011
by Michael Joseph
(first published 2011)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
5th out of 8 books
—
2 voters
More lists with this book...
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
3,000)
This is pretty good for a first effort, although I think it needs a touch of refinement. The "surprise" toward the end regarding the crime wasn't a surprise to me at all, and I can't imagine why it wouldn't have occurred to our heroine, Dr. Klein, or the police involved. It was too obvious. For the first half, though, it was a bit murky to see how this would all evolve - making the "Duh"-ness of the ending more of a let-down, in a way. There are some extraneous characters who, although colorful,...more
Jan 27, 2012
Lady Danielle aka The Book Huntress
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Character driven suspense readers
Blue Monday is a bit hard to pin down as far as genre. It has elements of both a mainstream and a mystery/suspense novel. I think the suspense elements tended to be sacrificed in favor of the exploration of characters and psychoanalysis elements. Nevertheless, it was a pretty good book. Warning: There are aspects that some readers will find disturbing if they are sensitive about children in jeopardy or being harmed.
Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.
Reviewed for Affaire de Coeur Magazine in the March...more
Overall rating: 3.5/5.0 stars.
Reviewed for Affaire de Coeur Magazine in the March...more
7 likes · like · see review
view all 4 comments
This is an amazingly gripping psychological crime thriller; but only from about half way through. Up until that point it just plodded along, and actually dragged along for a while. There was just too much background building and not enough tension building.
Once it got going though, it really took off and became unputdownable. I had to curse at the stupidity and naivity of some of the characters at times, but where would a good crime thriller be without those silly mistakes?
I would recommend thi...more
Once it got going though, it really took off and became unputdownable. I had to curse at the stupidity and naivity of some of the characters at times, but where would a good crime thriller be without those silly mistakes?
I would recommend thi...more
Book Description:
Frieda Klein is a solitary, incisive psychotherapist who spends her sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern London. She believes that the world is a messy, uncontrollable place, but what we can control is what is inside our heads. This attitude is reflected in her own life, which is an austere one of refuge, personal integrity, and order.
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a despera...more
Frieda Klein is a solitary, incisive psychotherapist who spends her sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern London. She believes that the world is a messy, uncontrollable place, but what we can control is what is inside our heads. This attitude is reflected in her own life, which is an austere one of refuge, personal integrity, and order.
The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes a national outcry and a despera...more
Είναι γνωστή η αγάπη μου για τα καλά αστυνομικά μυθιστορήματα. Εκείνα που σε κάνουν να αμφισβητείς την ίδια σου την κρίση, εκείνα που σε αφήνουν άναυδο στο τέλος να αναρωτιέσαι "πως μου διέφυγε αυτό;" . Έτσι δεν θα μπορούσα να αγνοήσω το πρώτο αυτό βιβλίο της πολλά υποσχόμενης σειράς "Φρίντα Κλάιν"!
Όταν διαβάζω ένα αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα έχω το νου μου και στις πιο ασήμαντες λεπτομέρειες αφού εκεί συνήθως κρύβεται η αλήθεια. Τις περισσότερες φορές όμως δεν καταφέρνω να επιλύσω το μυστήριο προτού...more
Όταν διαβάζω ένα αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα έχω το νου μου και στις πιο ασήμαντες λεπτομέρειες αφού εκεί συνήθως κρύβεται η αλήθεια. Τις περισσότερες φορές όμως δεν καταφέρνω να επιλύσω το μυστήριο προτού...more
It has been a while since I last read anything by Nicci French, but this is still a bit of a departure from the books I've read previously from this author.
Frieda is a likable enough heroine and it works well linking her as a psychologist to a criminal investigation; although, it is hardly an original idea. The other characters also came across well and the book was nice and easy to read. There were a lot of perspectives, but it was always clear whose head you were in so that was never a proble...more
Frieda is a likable enough heroine and it works well linking her as a psychologist to a criminal investigation; although, it is hardly an original idea. The other characters also came across well and the book was nice and easy to read. There were a lot of perspectives, but it was always clear whose head you were in so that was never a proble...more
"Era uma vez um menino chamado Matthew que quebrou uma promessa e tomou uma poção mágica e foi transformado em serpente como castigo."
Curiosamente, a acção do primeiro livro da série da psicanalista Frieda Klein desenrola-se dias antes do Natal, enquanto eu o li alguns dias após a mesma data.
Frieda Klein não é uma mulher comum. E, como tal, não odeia particularmente as Segundas-Feiras. Contudo, detesta o Natal. O seu trabalho consiste em ajudar as pessoas a encontrar uma narrativa para a sua vi...more
Curiosamente, a acção do primeiro livro da série da psicanalista Frieda Klein desenrola-se dias antes do Natal, enquanto eu o li alguns dias após a mesma data.
Frieda Klein não é uma mulher comum. E, como tal, não odeia particularmente as Segundas-Feiras. Contudo, detesta o Natal. O seu trabalho consiste em ajudar as pessoas a encontrar uma narrativa para a sua vi...more
2 likes · like · see review
A change of "formula" here as we are not being told the story from the victim/heroine's perspective as is usually the case in a Nicci French book. You know, the delightfully flawed modern girls to whom terrible things happen in most of the NF books. This time the book is written from the perspective of Dr Frieda Klein, a psychoanalyst who is drawn into the mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young boy. A client presents in her office telling of dreams that seem to suggest he has some invo...more
Frieda Klein is a physiotherapist working in London. She is a solitary soul who wanders the streets of the city in lieu of sleep. As this is the first in a series a lot of time was spent developing the background and laying hints for things to come before getting on with the action but the book does not suffer because of this. If anything it makes Frieda seems more real and therefore more sympathetic.
Twenty years ago a little girl was snatched off the street as she walked home from school. All h...more
Twenty years ago a little girl was snatched off the street as she walked home from school. All h...more
Λένε ότι δεν πρέπει να κρίνεις ένα βιβλίο από το εξώφυλλό του και σε έναν βαθμό συμφωνώ με την άποψη αυτή ωστόσο, υπάρχουν ορισμένα βιβλία που ασκούν πάνω στον αναγνώστη μια μυστηριακή γοητεία, από την στιγμή κι όλας που το βλέμμα τους θα τύχει να πέσει πάνω σε κάποιο ράφι βιβλιοπωλείου. Κάτι τέτοιο συνέβη και σε 'μένα όσον αφορά την περίπτωση του "Blue Monday", ένα αίσθημα που αυξήθηκε πολύ περισσότερο όταν διάβασα τις πρώτες του σελίδες, όπου κατακλύστηκα από ένα συναίσθημα επιτακτικής ανάγκης...more
Okay so this is like the third book I have read by this husband and wife writing team and this is the only one I didnt really care for..The premise is a solitary and kinda boring psychiatrist named Frieda Klein who wanders around the city of London at night, keeps up a halfhearted relationship with her family and a guy preparing to move to New York and contemplates life and what goes on in people's heads..The book moves on to discuss Adam, a patient of Frieda's referred for serious anxiety probl...more
The first couple of offerings by the duo that make up "Nicci French" were unputdownable. I stopped reading several years ago as I felt that the stories had become hackneyed and lacklustre, not to mention tediously predictable. I picked this up last week primarily because the blurb on the back convinced me that this could be something new. Sadly, nothing was further from the case. I brilliant premise became tedious and mundane, and the overall story became more and more unbelievable. Even the fin...more
I have never read any Nicci French books before, and for those of you who aren't aware Nicci French is actually a husband and wife writing team consisting of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. I was looking forward to reading this book as it is the start of a series of books featuring Frieda Klein.
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist who is something of a loner and she has a list of clients that need help in various ways. Whilst Freida is helping her clients a young five year old boy Matthew Faraday is...more
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist who is something of a loner and she has a list of clients that need help in various ways. Whilst Freida is helping her clients a young five year old boy Matthew Faraday is...more
This is the first of a new series of books featuring Frieda Klein, a London psychotherapist who leads a very self-structured life.
She gets involved with the solving of a kidnapping and her very ordered lifestyle gets a bit stirred up. This worked well because the kidnapping story was really tense and emotional, so having Frieda’s life get a bit wonky with having to deal with people invading her home life was a great way to reduce the tension in the story. I especially loved how Josef insinuated...more
She gets involved with the solving of a kidnapping and her very ordered lifestyle gets a bit stirred up. This worked well because the kidnapping story was really tense and emotional, so having Frieda’s life get a bit wonky with having to deal with people invading her home life was a great way to reduce the tension in the story. I especially loved how Josef insinuated...more
Blue Monday, by Nicci French is actually the work of husband and wife team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French. It is the first novel of seven in a new psychological thriller series featuring a 30-something, protagonist, Dr. Frieda Klein. The story takes place in London, England where Dr. Klein is a psychotherapist. She's a private, somewhat aloof person who sleeps too little and sometimes drinks a bit too much, and definitely has her demons. This first book of the new series is about a child abduc...more
I was drawn to this book by a description of it as featuring the underground rivers upon which London has been piled, layer upon layer and century upon century. I know that these rivers exist (I read another book that used this mysterious feature of London recently) and I wanted to see how they could enrich the setting or themes of a book. I actually didn't feel that this book did that at all; the rivers weren't exploited in any very interesting way. However, I did end up enjoying this book very...more
In 1987 nine-year-old Rosie Vine is keen to get to the sweet shop. Impatient with her five-year-old sister Joanna she skips ahead, and Joanna is never seen again.
Twenty two years on five-year–old Matthew Farraday is abducted. Psychotherapist
Frieda Klein reads of this in the newspapers and is disturbed when she sees that the photograph shown of Matthew is the image of a description one of her patients has given to her of a child that haunts him in his dreams. Worried that there could be a connec...more
Twenty two years on five-year–old Matthew Farraday is abducted. Psychotherapist
Frieda Klein reads of this in the newspapers and is disturbed when she sees that the photograph shown of Matthew is the image of a description one of her patients has given to her of a child that haunts him in his dreams. Worried that there could be a connec...more
Dr. Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist who practices in London. Intensely private and reclusive in her private life, she is insightful and able to help those few patients she agrees to take on.
London is abuzz with the latest crime story--five year old Matthew Farraday has been kidnapped from the street and is missing. The police are trying everything they can, but Matthew has just vanished into thin air. Drawing on his years of expertise, Chief Inspector Karlsson believes that this crime may be...more
London is abuzz with the latest crime story--five year old Matthew Farraday has been kidnapped from the street and is missing. The police are trying everything they can, but Matthew has just vanished into thin air. Drawing on his years of expertise, Chief Inspector Karlsson believes that this crime may be...more
3.5/5
Blue Monday marks the start of a new series from bestselling husband and wife team Nicci French.
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist in London, England. She is a private person, who keeps her own emotions and life tightly in check.
One of her latest patients has been having dreams . Dreams where he 'obtains' a son - a red haired little boy that he describes in great detail.
"She thought of all the secrets she had been told over the years, all those illicit thoughts, desires, fears that people g...more
Blue Monday marks the start of a new series from bestselling husband and wife team Nicci French.
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist in London, England. She is a private person, who keeps her own emotions and life tightly in check.
One of her latest patients has been having dreams . Dreams where he 'obtains' a son - a red haired little boy that he describes in great detail.
"She thought of all the secrets she had been told over the years, all those illicit thoughts, desires, fears that people g...more
If I belonged to a mystery/thriller book club, Blue Monday would be an excellent choice for the club read. There are so many things going on in this book that would lead to good discussions. Is such and such character really who they claim to be? What is the main character’s real motivation? What is she hiding? There are so many questions and it would be fun to get other opinions, so I’ll be reading other reviews aside from mine. I can’t imagine however that I will read a bad review!
Blue Monday...more
Blue Monday...more
Nicci French is the pseudonym of English husband-and-wife team Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, who write psychological thrillers together. Their new novel Blue Monday has got the praise of many well known authors and critics such as Louise Penny and Tami Hoag.
A Brief Summary:
The main character of the book is Frieda Klein, a psychotherapist in her mid-30s who spends her solitary live with her job and sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern Lon...more
A Brief Summary:
The main character of the book is Frieda Klein, a psychotherapist in her mid-30s who spends her solitary live with her job and sleepless nights walking along the ancient rivers that have been forced underground in modern Lon...more
See all my reviews at http://www.readingreality.net
"Blue Monday", according to some very shaky pseudoscience, is the most depressing day of the year.
Which makes Blue Monday a fitting title for the first book in Nicci French's new mystery series. Psychotherapist Frieda Klein features as the reader's guide into the darker recesses into the human mind.
Frieda's first "case" delves into dark places, indeed. Because this mystery is a case about lost people. Not just the initial tragedy of a missing ch...more
"Blue Monday", according to some very shaky pseudoscience, is the most depressing day of the year.
Which makes Blue Monday a fitting title for the first book in Nicci French's new mystery series. Psychotherapist Frieda Klein features as the reader's guide into the darker recesses into the human mind.
Frieda's first "case" delves into dark places, indeed. Because this mystery is a case about lost people. Not just the initial tragedy of a missing ch...more
Frieda Klein is a psychotherapist in her mid-thirties who is seeing a patient, Alan Dekker, for panic attacks. His dreams and thoughts preceding these attacks have aspects which sound remarkably like details of the abductions of children that have terrorized London. In spite of her commitment to the confidentiality of patient confessions, she feels obliged to go to the police. She begins to work with Detective Chief Inspector Malcolm Karlsson, and soon is in incredible danger herself.
Discussion:...more
Discussion:...more
Blue Monday
By
Nicci French
I love novels where the actual story meanders away from the story...
Let me restate...something bad happens ...a child is grabbed...and the next time we face this again...twenty years have passed. The crime remains unsolved, lives have been destroyed and we are involved with a new crime and a new yet familiar event.
There appears to be one central character whom every other character is connected to...
That would be Freida...quirky odd psychologist.
This book was intense, th...more
By
Nicci French
I love novels where the actual story meanders away from the story...
Let me restate...something bad happens ...a child is grabbed...and the next time we face this again...twenty years have passed. The crime remains unsolved, lives have been destroyed and we are involved with a new crime and a new yet familiar event.
There appears to be one central character whom every other character is connected to...
That would be Freida...quirky odd psychologist.
This book was intense, th...more
Book review: Blue Monday by Nicci French. This is an very good mystery thriller as are all Nicci French books. A little 5 yr old girl goes missing, 22 years later a 5 yr old boy goes too. Physcotherapist Frieda Klein has a new patient & his dreams/fantasies match the disappearance of the boy. Frieda works with a reluctant police officer to try to find the boy. Most of this is fast paced but there are slow points. Frieda takes lengthy walks around London at night and we a treated to a detaile...more
This is a dark story with twists and turns that pull psychoanalyst Frieda Klein into the lives of some very troubled people. She's a solitary person who likes to walk the night streets alone and bring order to the mind.
But sometimes the scariest places are the places inside our heads. One of Frieda's patients, Alan describes a longing for a child so distressing that it's making him physically ill. He doesn't know where this longing comes from, but he can describe the child in great detail. And w...more
But sometimes the scariest places are the places inside our heads. One of Frieda's patients, Alan describes a longing for a child so distressing that it's making him physically ill. He doesn't know where this longing comes from, but he can describe the child in great detail. And w...more
This is my first Nicci French book so unlike many readers I had no previous novels to compare to. I enjoyed this book but can't make up my mind about Freda Klein as a character. I am willing to give her the benefit of the doubt and read another book with her as the protagonist. I did figure out some of the plot twists in advance although not all. Nevertheless the later half of the book was quite gripping. I am the mother of 9 month old baby and when she starts napping there are lots of essential...more
Monday, the lowest point of the week. A day of dark impulses. A day to snatch a child from the streets ...The abduction of five-year-old Matthew Farraday provokes national outcry and a desperate police hunt. And when his face is splashed over the newspapers, psychotherapist Frieda Klein is left troubled: one of her patients has been relating dreams in which he has a hunger for a child. A child he can describe in perfect detail, a child the spitting image of Matthew.Detective Chief Inspector Karl...more
How does it feel?
Psychotherapist Frieda Klein is the protagonist of this first in a new series by
husband and wife writing team Nicci French. When one of her new patients
recounts to her a fantasy of having a son, it sounds disturbingly like a little
boy who has recently been kidnapped. Despite misgivings, Frieda contacts
the police and gradually gets drawn into the investigation.
I used to enjoy the Nicci French books when they first started, until I read
one that was too nasty for me, but I'm...more
Psychotherapist Frieda Klein is the protagonist of this first in a new series by
husband and wife writing team Nicci French. When one of her new patients
recounts to her a fantasy of having a son, it sounds disturbingly like a little
boy who has recently been kidnapped. Despite misgivings, Frieda contacts
the police and gradually gets drawn into the investigation.
I used to enjoy the Nicci French books when they first started, until I read
one that was too nasty for me, but I'm...more
This book was extremely gripping towards the end, but as many other people have said on this and other book sites, rather slow to get going. I also thought the plot was rather predictable: identical twins is hardly a new concept. The main character wasn't particularly likeable (although I can see that others disagree with me on that). The psychoanalytical concept was interesting, if not particularly feasible in real terms - but then it is a novel, and not a textbook. I felt there were rather too...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goodreads Librari...: Original Publication Date for "Blue Monday" | 4 | 20 | Nov 21, 2012 09:30pm | |
| Bloggers Unite™ : Win an ARC of Blue Monday by Nicci French | 1 | 3 | Mar 13, 2012 10:41am | |
| Book Bloggers Ano...: Win an ARC of Blue Monday by Nicci French | 1 | 1 | Mar 13, 2012 10:41am | |
| Creative Reviews: Win Blue Monday by Nicci French | 1 | 4 | Mar 13, 2012 10:40am | |
| Goodreads Librari...: Add synopsis | 1 | 17 | Sep 01, 2011 01:41am |
Note: (Nicci Gerrard and Sean French also write separately.)
Nicci Gerrard was born in June 1958 in Worcestershire. After graduating with a first class honours degree in English Literature from Oxford University, she began her first job, working with emotionally disturbed children in Sheffield. In that same year she married journalist Colin Hughes.
In the early eighties she taught English Literature...more
More about Nicci French...
Nicci Gerrard was born in June 1958 in Worcestershire. After graduating with a first class honours degree in English Literature from Oxford University, she began her first job, working with emotionally disturbed children in Sheffield. In that same year she married journalist Colin Hughes.
In the early eighties she taught English Literature...more
Share This Book
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »
