A Tangled Web
I watched Netflix’s documentary “Lover, Stalker, Killer” and was captivated by the story. At the end, a placard said this story was based on the book “A Tangled Web” by Leslie Rule, so of course, I put myself on the waiting list at my local library immediately! Six weeks later (a long wait for me), I finally got this book…and just could not read past the first few chapters. The writing is just so bad.
First, the main character, Dave, is not a real likeable guy. Since this is based on a true story, it’s not like Rule could make someone up that would appeal to everyone, but her trying to make us like him by writing phrases, such as “Dave has wavy brown hair, the kind women want to run their hands through” is not helping to make us like him more (I am paraphrasing here; I can’t remember the exact wording, but this is the gist of it). Then he describes himself as “kinky” in the bedroom, which is TMI for the book and does not add to the plot at all. Finally, we get into the complete lack of correct punctuation; Rule apparently doesn’t believe in using commas unless absolutely necessary. And finally, when I hit an obvious typo (wend = will) on top of everything else, I was done with the book.
Just to give you a brief synopsis, Dave is a man from Omaha, Nebraska, who was cyberstalked from 2012 – 2016 by a woman he had previously dated. The authorities thought they knew who she was, she told them she could see Dave when he was at work, home, etc…. but they still couldn’t catch her! And this was not back before recent technological advances, this was relatively recently. There are a lot of unexpected twists and turns to the story, some so crazy that it made me question whether this was real or made-up. Really good movie, bad book.