Question F

[Jonetta]

What was your initial thinking of the dynamics between Gene and his mother? Why did she consider him a loser and why was he taking what she dished out?

[Charlene]

She could only see the father in the son, a truly unfortunate way to treat a child. He was so long damaged by this that he grew a shell to protect himself from the hurt, but what a horrid thing came of his twisted genius.

[Jonetta]

I wish the author would have fleshed this out some. It was confusing to me as to why he decided to kill her at this moment. She didn't seem to be doing anything different.

[Lauren]

Eugene's character was very underdeveloped. All we really get is that his mother was abusive and that he became obsessed with continuing Nate Brewster's "work".

There really isn't enough psychological information about him to explain why he chose to emulate Nate. It would have made more sense if he had targeted Russian or Estonian prostitutes or even elderly women.

[Lauren]

Jonetta wrote: "I wish the author would have fleshed this out some. It was confusing to me as to why he decided to kill her at this moment. She didn't seem to be doing anything different."

He killed her because she found the bloody clothes and threatened to go to the police. That would have prevented him from getting to Talia and he couldn't risk it.

[Jonetta]

I'm with you about the character not being fleshed out well. Even with his fear of his mother ratting him out, it still would have seemed to be a harder internal struggle for him to kill her so suddenly. He was terrified of her but in a flash, he was able to off her without any residual emotion.

This just didn't work for me.

[Lauren]

It did come out of the blue. There was no prior indication that he wanted to kill her. I just accepted that he hated her and when the need arose, he did it.