Goodreads helps you keep track of books you want to read.
Start by marking “Close to the Edge” as Want to Read:
Close to the Edge
by
Morning rush hour on the London underground and Laurie Bateman is on her way to work when she witnesses a terrible accident. The elderly gentleman next to her on the platform falls onto the tracks and is fatally injured. With the police uninterested, Laurie is drawn to investigate and soon finds herself breaking into the tube network in the dead of night searching for a cl
...more
Kindle Edition, 312 pages
Published
April 4th 2019
by Muswell Press
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Reader Q&A
To ask other readers questions about
Close to the Edge,
please sign up.
Be the first to ask a question about Close to the Edge
This book is not yet featured on Listopia.
Add this book to your favorite list »
Community Reviews
Showing 1-30

Start your review of Close to the Edge

Apr 12, 2019
Mandy White (mandylovestoread)
rated it
did not like it
Shelves:
z-read-in-2019,
pigeonhole-books
I really tried to like this book, I really did. But it was just completely far fetched and unbelievable characters. Thanks Pigeonhole Books for the chance to read it, not for me though.

This book is a complete car crash! The action is totally implausible, characters are so ridiculous it makes you wonder if the author has ever met a woman! Every woman is portrayed as a complete idiot, reckless and emotional with absolutely no rational thought and swooning after men. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if this was written by someone who lived in a cave all their life with no clue on how the world works! Or that he’s about 12 years old with no actual life experiences. So annoyed I was
...more

As soon as I started reading this book I knew I was going to struggle to put it down and i did. Struggle to put it down that is.
Laurie is witness to a horrible incident with a man falling into the path of an oncoming train. What a horrible thing to experience. I don’t think anyone could walk away unscathed from witnessing such a thing. I’m not so sure though that I would go off investigating myself when the police are reluctant to believe it’s anything other than an accident/suicide.
What follows ...more
Laurie is witness to a horrible incident with a man falling into the path of an oncoming train. What a horrible thing to experience. I don’t think anyone could walk away unscathed from witnessing such a thing. I’m not so sure though that I would go off investigating myself when the police are reluctant to believe it’s anything other than an accident/suicide.
What follows ...more

I hate to say it but I didn’t enjoy this novel at all. It starts out pretty well, with an action-filled scene in the underground, but I did feel a little overwhelmed and unprepared, I had no clue what was going on. I decided to go with the flow, but I’m afraid it all went downhill from there and rather fast to boot. And I went from overwhelmed by the opening chapter to underwhelmed by all the others. I disliked the main character, Laurie, she had me rolling my eyes and sighing at every turn. She
...more

This was such a disappointing and unbelievable read. It started off well with the unusual setting and a reasonable amount of tension, but like a runaway train, it sped up without any direction or control and came hurtling off the tracks in a chaotic mess of a storyline that just didn't add up, make much sense, or possess any credibility.
The detail about travelling the underground whilst the rails weren't live, and running through tunnels was painful and for me, very hard to imagine and understa ...more
The detail about travelling the underground whilst the rails weren't live, and running through tunnels was painful and for me, very hard to imagine and understa ...more

This book was a disappointment after starting out with promise and a cracking speed. It personified women as stupid and reckless and whilst fellow book-club readers said it was reminiscent of a Mills and Boon novel, I cannot recall a single Mills and Boon book that exemplified the lead character as downright idiotic. The writing was average at best and the storyline went from showing potential to a ridiculous mess with none of the characters portrayed as credible. Deeply disappointing.

I hate to give only one star, but I really REALLY struggled with this one. The female main character was so badly written that I wondered if the author had ever actually met a woman, and the storyline itself was all over the place. Implausible. I know it’s fiction, and I know books are allowed to stretch reality, but this seemed disjointed and all over the place. And the end third was just a rush with no realistic explanations. The only saving grace, was that I read this on The Pigeonhole, and m
...more

Hate to say it but I found this book INCREDIBLY boring. There were so many times when I thought something was about to finally happen, but nothing did. And Laurie is so obsessed(!) with this Paul and death it’s actually annoying and bordering on stalking. I also felt like there were many pointless parts in this book.
The last 10% was the better part but not enough to save the book.
Such a shame.
1.5* (at a push)
The last 10% was the better part but not enough to save the book.
Such a shame.
1.5* (at a push)

Close to the Edge begins with a fast forward chapter and the following chapters consider what happened in the run up to those events, before returning to the present day.
Laurie Bateman is working in London as a PA/Assistant at a financial services company in Mayfair. Originally from Somerset, she’s come to London after the death of her mum, something that still dwells on her mind. That’s why she notices when a man at on the Tube platform smiles at her and indicates by way of a gesture that she h ...more
Laurie Bateman is working in London as a PA/Assistant at a financial services company in Mayfair. Originally from Somerset, she’s come to London after the death of her mum, something that still dwells on her mind. That’s why she notices when a man at on the Tube platform smiles at her and indicates by way of a gesture that she h ...more

There’s not too much I can say about this book that is positive. I read this via the Pigeonhole app and most of us were in agreement how ludicrous the plot was and how badly written it is. A women, Laurie, witnesses a man fall (or is he pushed??) in front of an underground train,noticing as he does so that he is holding something, possibly a key, in his hand. Whilst the police believe this to be suicide, Laurie for some reason I can’t fathom decides to investigate for herself. So begins the most
...more

I was immediately drawn to the story. I've travelled on the underground many times, seen the scrum during busy commuter, hours and often thought about just how easy it would be for someone to lose their footing, perhaps get too close to the edge of the track at the wrong time and then about the potential for what could and would happen next. It's not implausible if, thankfully, relatively rare. What Toby Faber has done with Too Close To The Egde, is take this fear, this absolutely possible scena
...more

A great start to an exciting thriller, a young woman is being chased through the underground at night. With fast paced action I had high hopes for this thriller but unfortunately that's where it ended. A very irritating main character who didn't have any likliness to any woman I know, confused how I was supposed to feel for her.
A plodding plot to reveal the back story, then a slow plod along mystery which was, I thought, written for young adults, then the atrocious attack scenes that were just ...more
A plodding plot to reveal the back story, then a slow plod along mystery which was, I thought, written for young adults, then the atrocious attack scenes that were just ...more

This book started off really well, and I had high hopes for it, but it went totally downhill after the first couple of pages. The plot became increasingly more implausible. The characters were just ridiculous, and in the end, I finished it purely because I had to see how the author was going to wrap it up. Badly, is the answer. Just too pat, with no growth in any of the characters. Don't waste your time. It's neither electrifying, nor thrilling, as the blurb will have you believe, just plodding.
...more

Hmm, this was okay, a story about a woman who witnesses a death on the Underground and then various ‘random’ things happen. It was nice reading a book about parts of London I know well but as a consequence I guessed the answer to one of the plot points pretty quickly. Some of the characters actions weren’t always that believable and some of violence felt a bit gratuitous, in that in some books that level of violence is to be expected because it’s that sort of book but this story did not present
...more

What began as a promising storyline turned out to be a huge disappointment. The whole plot was far fetched and incredible and the main character was portrayed as a complete idiot....surprising when she was a supposedly educated woman from a similar family background. I read this with Pigeonhole and was continually waiting for things to get better; unfortunately they got worse! The best part was reading the comments of other readers along the way! I am glad I did not pay for this book, as it was
...more

I’m mindful that authors put a lot of time and effort into writing books so I feel unkind rating it with 1 star. This book started promisingly but a few chapters in it started to be implausible. I’m happy to stretch my imagination in books but it has to have some credibility. The plot was far fetched, the lead character was an insult to the female sex and it is beyond belief that three such ordinary citizens would not have involved the police. I hope these reviews don’t put the author off writin
...more

Feel terrible for rating this book with only 2 stars, but I genuinely didn’t like it. There was something very wrong with the timing, I don’t understand how this could be missed by the author, proofreaders and publisher.
If I take a few steps back and look at the story, it could have been a great one, but the way it was told was terrible. I’m not saying I could do better, because I can’t write at all, but I would have handled the story differently. Of that I’m sure as hell!
Sometimes I got just t ...more
If I take a few steps back and look at the story, it could have been a great one, but the way it was told was terrible. I’m not saying I could do better, because I can’t write at all, but I would have handled the story differently. Of that I’m sure as hell!
Sometimes I got just t ...more

This book started off with great promise - the mystery of why a woman was in the underground at night, what was she looking for and who was after her. Sadly, after that first chapter it was all downhill. The characters weren’t believable as humans at some points. The events happening were unbelievable. The weighting was meh at best.

This is very unusual for me...I think this is my first one star review!
The most annoying thing about this book, apart from the characters, their behaviour, the plot and the execution, is that the premise is actually really, really good, but it falls flat just about everywhere else.
The women are all ridiculous, skittish and dreaming so much of butterflies and love hearts that they ignore obvious danger and villainy and just wander around causing havoc and putting everyone in danger. The ending i ...more
The most annoying thing about this book, apart from the characters, their behaviour, the plot and the execution, is that the premise is actually really, really good, but it falls flat just about everywhere else.
The women are all ridiculous, skittish and dreaming so much of butterflies and love hearts that they ignore obvious danger and villainy and just wander around causing havoc and putting everyone in danger. The ending i ...more
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Related Articles
We asked Alice Bolin, author of Dead Girls: Essays on Surviving an American Obsession, and journalist-turned-crime novelist Laura...
99 likes · 48 comments
No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »