Trouble - Jesse Kellerman

After another difficult and tiring day at the hospital where he is a medical student, Jonah Stem stumbles across an incident in the street where a woman has just been stabbed by an assailant. Without any thought for the danger he is getting himself into, Jonah rushes to her rescue and in the ensuing struggle her attacker is killed.

The real danger that Jonah has got himself into however doesn’t become apparent until quite a while later. Clearly, Jonah’s intervention was an act of heroism not common on New York streets, but this doesn’t prevent the family of the deceased would-be mugger landing a law-suit on the medical student for unlawful killing. But even that is not where the real trouble lies. When the young woman he has rescued expresses her gratitude in makes contact with him and they embark on a dark and torrid affair. But all is not as it seems…

With a reasonably intriguing opening, there are any number of directions Trouble could go in. Sadly, Kellerman Jr. goes for the bunny-boiler option and the whole thing just staggers from one level of improbability to another, particularly with the overly convenient use of home webcams and video recorders. At least as a thriller, it keeps you wondering where it the ludicrous situation will lead, but there’s something quite disagreeable and faintly misogynistic about it all.

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