Stalking Fiona

by Nigel Williams

Fiona McMillan wakes to the sound of a package being delivered. The various documents it contains present Fiona's story told by more than one in a letter, a diary, a journal and on a computer disk. But which voice is telling the truth and how can she be sure of the murderer's identity

Genres: Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Jonathan Norton · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bridget Jones's Intertextuality - a collation of apparently disconnected manuscripts from the horrible men leering over the fragrant young Eng.Lit. graduate who knows all about French theory, blah blah. Maybe it was meant as parodic of Dennis Potter's "Blackeyes", but what mainly strikes this reader 20 years later is that Nigel didn't really understand the details of this fancy world of computer disks and white-text-on-blue-screen (wasn't that gone by the late 90s?), referring to a filename by constantly including the drive letter being a teethgrinding example. The plot-moving decisions such as the trip to a hotel in Dartsea are taken with absurdly perfunctory way that wouldn't pass muster in the flimsiest sitcom, and I had to struggle to remember where the action was happening and why we'd got there, although there isn't space for much action to occur when everyone's apparently standing around reading the latest text about the previous episode. Fiona can't ever feel in much danger around these men, unless she did a speed-reading course and flicks over the pages in seconds. Everyons is interchangably dull and unmemorable anyway and I couldn't care less about the ending that I've forgotten anyway, I stopped paying much attention before then. Whatever.

[Kirsty Barnes · Rating 1 out of 5]

Dear oh dear how I hated this!
Started off quite gripping and then it got too confusing about who was writing and whether they were writing something that actually happened or merely a lie to incriminate someone else. Ending was such a let down. Thank god I got it for free!

[KeenReader · Rating 1 out of 5]

I liked the idea of this book and I enjoy books with unreliable narrators, but I couldn't get along with this. The main character, Fiona, didn't behave consistently. For example, the author makes Fiona think about the reliability of a document she's reading. She thinks something along the lines of: We tend to trust the things we read, don't we? But it would be a mistake to accept everything, I am going to read this critically. She then accepted two situations that were clearly implausible, without asking some really obvious questions. I was nearly tearing my hair out in frustration at this point.

Fiona and another character also failed to do things that it was clearly in their self-interest to do. Both characters clearly understood the situation they are in, but apparently overlooked the obvious thing that would have benefited them. This was a good idea, but the execution is lacking.

[Ranjana · Rating 2 out of 5]

A really ludicrous book and plot. In the plot, there are three men who are possible suspects in the rape of a woman who works in the same office as the suspects. It’s ridiculous that the woman can not identify the rapist especially as she gets assaulted twice by him and is an office colleague. How can all three men have the same build, walk and voice that she is unable to figure out which one the rapist is? The diary entries and the accounts of the people ramble on and can get confusing to the point that you don’t know whether they are lying or telling the truth. Certainly not the best effort from Nigel Williams.

[Priyanshu Ratnakar · Rating 2 out of 5]

"Never judge a book by its cover" but I did. I picked it because of its cover It's very minimal and eye catchy I thought this one would be an interesting read, but I was WRONG.

This is my genre. I love fiction. crime and thriller but this was straight-up boring. It started with an exciting pace but later on, was just manuscripts. I was baffled in part 2. If what was written even makes sense or just for fillers.

Overall you can say start 20% average later 30 interesting the other 40% boring and the ending 10% is good.

[Nick Davies · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting read, which I was uncertain of all the way through as to whether I was liking/enjoying reading it. It isn't a completely pleasant or easy read, but this is more due to the subject matters dealt with (the rape/attack/stalking of a young woman, told from her viewpoint, for example) than with anything 'at fault' with the writing. As the book progressed, it raised a whole load of questions about how well we really know people, and the nature of trust. There was also quite an eye-opening point made within the story about how what read we often see as 'true', compared to what we just have said to us. Interesting.