Review: Most Wanted by Lisa Scottoline

Christine and Marcus Nilsson tried to conceive for months without success. Desperate to have a child, they agreed to use a donor.  Now, thrilled to be pregnant, they now begin to plan their new family together. Christine quits her teaching job so she can stay home full-time.  In the midst of celebrating, however, the unthinkable happens. Christine is watching a news broadcast of a man arrested for a series of brutal murders, a man with an uncanny resemblance to their donor.

Christine must confront the possibility that the father of her unborn child is a killer. Marcus refuses to face this without a fight and opts to file a lawsuit against the agency they used. Christine, however, does the unthinkable: unable to accept that the donor could be a killer, she visits him in jail and helps launch an investigation into the killings, risking her own life in the process.

The premise of this novel most certainly captivated me.  So many thoughts came flooding through my head as I read, including the concept of nature versus nurture. Would I be able to carry a child knowing its father was a killer? Would I believe that tendency, that need to kill, would be passed on through genetics? Or would I hope that raising the child in a nurturing home would prevent the child from following its father’s footsteps? Would I be able to raise the child, knowing what he or she may be capable of?

What I couldn’t accept was Christine’s response. Sure, she was desperate to have a child.  But to go so far as to meet a man who was a potential serial killer? I don’t know that I would be able to go that far.  Additionally, I couldn’t get past how thoughtless and selfish Christine was in her investigation. She lied to her husband, drove off for days at a time to provide assistance to a man she had just met. Were the hormones of early pregnancy taking over? I’m a mother myself, but I don’t know that I would go to the extremes that Christine did to prove the innocence of this stranger.

The unrealistic nature of Christine’s character wasn’t unique; this carried on to the secondary characters as well. Marcus’ reaction to the news was more genuine, but the fact that he allowed his wife to pursue this investigation was beyond plausible to me. The attorney Christine locates to handle the donor’s case was completely flat; it was as though he was just thrown in to fill a role.

The most redeeming part of this thriller was the first part; the examination of the sperm donor industry, full of faults and unreliability. Had that been the focus of this thriller, I’d be more apt to accept this as a well formed thriller. Instead, it went the way of a completely unbelievable and implausible thriller.  In order to enjoy this book, the reader must suspend all disbelief, accept the implausible, and go along for the ride.  As a fan of  Scottoline’s previous work I felt…dismayed and disappointed.  Sure, it’s a book that is riddled with emotion and intensity, but not the author’s full potential.

All in all, if you are a reader able to see past the unbelievable, this is the read for you.  If you are new to the author’s work, don’t let this be your first experience with this author, instead focus on her previous work. While I won’t discourage you from reading this book, it’s certainly not characteristic of her true potential.