Review of Don't Let Him In by Lisa Jewell

The premise and wild tangle of storylines--not deep character development--are the highlights in this story about an easy-to-hate villain and his shocking, dastardly deeds. Strong women prevail in a messy lead-up to imperfect but ultimate justice.

I've been continuing my cold-weather mystery-reading habits, and Lisa Jewell is always a good bet for an intriguing story, so I was excited to listen to another of her novels.

After Nina Swann's semi-famous chef husband Paddy is killed, Nina receives a condolence card from a stranger to her, one of Paddy's former colleagues, the handsome Nick Radcliffe. Nick follows up with in-person charm and comfort. But Nina's young-adult daughter Ash thinks Nick might be too smooth, and the timing of his entrance into their lives seems strange to her.

Meanwhile, Martha is running a small-town florist shop, sometimes with the help of her husband Alistair. But lately he's been acting oddly, leaving town suddenly and remaining unreachable for long stretches of time.

As the female characters in Don't Let Him In begin to ask questions about the men in their lives, they head on a crash course straight toward each other--and the truth.

I was hooooked on this premise (spoiler alert!) in which a man lives out multiple overlapping lives, deceiving and lying all the while. Jewell offers a peek at the psychologically twisted motivations of the story's main protagonist, his dissatisfaction with his lot in life, his greed for the next conquest, and his misguided hope that he will be satisfied by a "perfect" woman and can attain an ideal set of life circumstances. The stakes grow ever higher as his irrational fixations come up short--and as various women begin to find cracks in his story.

Some of the lengths he goes to feel at times extreme and dramatic, but I was fine with rolling with all of it, because so are his self-crafted tangle of identities, hidden crimes, and delusional, I-deserve-this pie-in-the-sky dreams. I was in for the over-the-top mania and the slow unraveling of his terrible lies, all of which pick up speed as various women race to unmask the man and reveal his chillingly methodical manner of imploding the lives around him.

Dipping in and out of the protagonist's various identities and life paths (and those who surround him) doesn't allow for significant depth in character development, but that's not what Don't Let Him In is built upon. The creepy premise, the interwoven story structure, the dark plot, the psychopathic impulses, and the eventual mission of renegade justice are what drive this story and offer its intrigue.

I physically cringed each time another vulerable female character who was, understandably, looking for companionship, adoration, and love fell into the web of this abomination of a man-child who thinks he deserves anything he lays eyes upon and who resists any sense that his deadly entitlement warrants repercussions and punishment.

Nothing can fully undo the wrongs of the past, but Jewell makes things satisfyingly messy and complex as the story draws toward a close, and the novel's final scenes offer some justice.

Strong, determined women prevail!

I listened to Don't Let Him In as a library audiobook on Libby.

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Lisa Jewell is also the author of The Family Upstairs, None of This Is True, and other books.

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