First and foremost, I have to get the negatives out of the way. Two unappealing things stood out. The first concerned the portrayal of Liz/Elizabeth in the first section of the book. The robotic B.S. and the effects of Mommie Dearest on Elizabeth was overwrought and both highly unnecessary and highly ridiculous. I had one of those mothers, and before I actually did rebel, I had thought long and hard about the "what ifs" of taking a step out of line. Once I wandered, well... there was no turning back.. but that's another book. At any rate, Elizabeth was a very unlikable character in the beginning. Her mother was too overdrawn and ridiculuous and the author spent the rest of the book using the mother's bad ways to demonstrate how far Eliz/Liz/Abigail had come to get out from under her. The second ugly thing was the rendering of Elizabeth to be a counterpart to Lisbeth Salander from the Dragon Tattoo Series. It was so close, so mimetic, that I came close several times to not resuming. Even I could not figure out why I stuck with it when I was really angry with Nora Roberts for appearing to "steal" from the very popular book and its very quirky character.
Neither Liz/Elizabeth nor Abigail could hold a candle to Lisbeth. Lisbeth was so real, so alive, so believable, that The Witness became only the eye of a camera by comparison.
Enter Brooks Gleason. I did not like the use of man/romance as a manipulative device to get Abigail to loosen up. I think it's an easy-peasy method of bringing the female character to her senses -- that is to trust/love/have sex again. But I loked the character of Brooks and really liked his family.
So what is this book about? It is NOT about straying from mommy's intended discipline and getting people killed, it is not about the consequences and punishments of a child's bad behavior. It is not (entirely) about love and romance or about revenge and one-upsmanship.
In the Dragon Tattoo series, Lisbeth was dedicated to her work, and nothing, even her somewhat-one sided romance with Mikail, derailed her from her intention. She would reap havoc on her abuser(s), rob them and enjoy their money. We never for a moment forgot who Lisbeth was, what she came through and why she did the things she did. We never questioned what she would be doing after the capers (Russians btw) -- she would continue being Lisbeth.
In The Witness, Elizabeth/Liz were personas meant to be exterminated. There was never a question in the book that she would die or be tortured or identified by the Russians. We knew that good ol' Brooks would keep her safe.
But what Nora Roberts book IS about is the social outsider, the excluder, the invisible among us. Where Lisbeth was an outsider, she was so by choice. Elizabeth Fitch was an outsider by orders of her robotic mother, Dr. Susan Fitch. The writer of this book would have us believe that Elizabeth was so programmed that even in the few allotted hours of TV, Elizabeth did not ever imagine herself doing anything but that which her mother had programmed for her.
Yet, when left alone for a short time, and with the benefit of some thought, but not much, she transformed herself from goody-goody to worldly and sexy and bad things came as a result.
In the course of the book, during the romance with Brooks, during the parallel stories of blackmail and spousal abuses in Bickford, Abigail (alias for Elizabeth) comes to see the value of love, friendship and FAMILY.
The author gives Abigail stupid lines of dialogue to show us how wide-eyed she was about, for instance, how to properly attend a family picnic, but that was unnecessary and NOT cute.
The wrap up, the way ABigail was able to put Liz/Elizabeth to rest forever, was trite and without complications. I seldom say this; in fact I am usually complaining that a long book is too full of filler; but this book needed another hundred pages or so to play out the bringdown of the Russian mob -- (could have been Italians, Latinos, African-Americans, Middle Easterners, or Asians).
There was a lot of repetition of Abigail's travails. There were too many insertions of Abigail's unpolished demeanor (she's 28 and she's a computer genius and able to see the world from a distance. She would not have been that socially inept -- ever) -- all this leads me to think that the author wanted to infantilize Abigail, keep her at the age of 16 when her world went whacko.
Unforgivable: The absence of closure with the mother, Dr. Susan Fitch. Not that there should have been a reunion with violins and roses. In fact, Abigail replaced Susan with Sunny -- and that was appropraite -- but there should have been some final checkin that ABigail might have made to report the status of Susan, even with her donor father. Those things could have been nicely tied together into a package of parallel longings, forgetting and forgiveness. I think the exclusion of that closure with her biological family was a mistake.
So, really, this is about an outsider who finally wants in. She no longer is happy in her computer safe room. She is in love with a fine, sexy, powerful man (what other kind is there?) and she gets the nerve to open the door, so to speak.
I love the outsider theme, but I hate that the outsider makes peace ONLY after she is rescued by sex and love.
What about the dog? Bert is a highly trained security animal, and yet, she brings him to family parties, she takes him to a stranger's home. My very limited knowledge of security animals tells me that a working dog is at work at all times. I could be wrong, maybe the working dog is also tender and loving, (just like Brooks Gleason). Something about that rang "off" with me, but I won't press that point.
If you have not read the Stieg Larrson trilogy -- the book is likeable. There is no pulsing tension; this is no page turner, but it is a decent read out on a hammock or on the beach, even if it doesn't "feel" real.
This is the first Nora Roberts book for me. I will have a hard time trying another because I fear she writes those romance type books which depend on the love and attention of a handsome man to bring a heroine to wholeness. That is somewhat anachronistic in these times -- especially when the heroine is a crack computer hacker/geek/nerd whose worldliness would exceed the good ol' boy she craves.
