Odna Ten' Na Dvoikh; by Tatiana Ustinova
(One Shadow for Two)

Continuing with my 'so braindead' series I bring you the second novel of T. Ustinova.

Many years ago a woman is murdered. Her spouse, an architect named Andrei Danilov, is the first and seemingly only suspect, and the only thing that saves him from jail was a road police officer who took his time questioning Danilov on the legitimacy of his driver's license.

Fast forward to now, and something goes terribly wrong. Somebody destroys the house, the house, Danilov has been working on. Somebody keeps reminding him of his spouse's death in crudest ways. Danilov's long time Best Friend gets pregnant, and for some reason he doesn't like it. Danilov's mother invites him to his father's latest book presentation, and it's hard. Too hard.

Because you see, Danilov was supposed to become a famous pianist. But he couldn't, and now his parents are forever disappointed in him. So to get over it somehow, he builds a life of structure and order around him. Everything's according to a regimen. Danilov is very OCD.

I can't decide whether I liked this book more than the first one. The first one was more of a romance novel with a bit of suspense & mystery thrown in to make things more exciting. This one is definitely more of a mystery novel, but with a love story on the side of course. I can even call it a thriller. And once more, Ustinova's characters are detailed. She never shies away from giving them a whole lot of complexes and inner turmoils. They don't seem to be easy on themselves, ever.

What I didn't like is that the main character, Danilov, was sort of... repetitive. He's supposed to be, considering his character, but at some points in the story it got old. Another thing I didn't like is that I kept walking around the flat all paranoid, but that's not the book's weak point, of course. It's just me, and my nocturnal lifestyle, and my cowardly nature. :P

Amazingly available on Amazon here. In Russian, though.

Labels: mystery, russian