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Leah's Reviews > The Close
The Close (Maeve Kerrigan #10)
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I used to love this series because it used to be about crime. Now it is about the deeply uncomfortable relationship between Maeve, who has turned into a pathetic needy sub-1950s woman who must have a man to be complete and yet can't find or keep one, and her boss Josh, who has turned into her stalker and repetitive sexual harasser, which she seems to find both repellent and attractive simultaneously. I was never one of Josh's legions of fans since sexual harassers have never attracted me - odd, I know - and I said books ago that I really hoped Casey would pull back from trying to portray this abusive relationship as romantic or titillating, but I fear my hopes have finally been destroyed. The vision of Josh forcing his physical attentions on a traumatised survivor of domestic abuse, which is sadly what the once-fun Maeve has become, in the pretence of it being necessary for work nauseates me. And I don't want to read hundreds more pages of it. I'm abandoning the book at 15% and the series at book 10. Thanks for the good times, Maeve - I hope you get over your sick obsession with your revolting boss some day, make a complaint and have him thrown out of the Met, but I won't be around to find out.
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March 31, 2023
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Margaret
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rated it 2 stars
Apr 20, 2023 01:55AM
I was cautious reading this as I wondered whether it would live up to the hype. It began well, I thought, but I also found Maeve and Josh's relationship deeply uncomfortable. It definitely spoiled the book for me, but I did make it to the end, pulled along by the tension Casey creates in the murder mysteries they are investigating. But it's not as good as the earlier books in the series - maybe too many layers and too many dark secrets for me too.
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Margaret wrote: "I was cautious reading this ..."I've felt for the last few books that their relationship has been more sick than romantic, so have been increasingly reluctant to read them. I hoped when Josh got himself a long-term partner maybe Casey was going to move away from this, but I fear this one went far too far. I wouldn't mind if Casey was showing it as an abusive relationship, but she clearly intends it to titillate. If even female writers suggest that women should be titillated by abusive sexual harassers, what hope is there?
I never felt Josh was sexually harassing or being abusive to Maeve. . . until this book. The scene where he throws a tantrum and accuses her of not doing her job because she won't "pretend" to be submissive to him for the sake of their "work" made me sick, but when Maeve just capitulated and accepted it I just couldn't believe Jane Casey was writing it. She really did turn her into a doormat and Josh into a total scumbag and this was supposed to be the set up for some "romance?" This was nothing to the scene where Maeve is miraculously cured of her frigidity (her biggest complaint from her experience with Seth!) just because he-man Josh gives her come-hither eyes was just appalling. "I was back to myself" because Josh the Alpha Male turns on the He-man charm. Voila! My PTSD is cured! It was absolutely godawful.
Jane wrote: "I never felt Josh was sexually harassing or being abusive to Maeve. . . until this book. The scene where he throws a tantrum and accuses her of not doing her job because she won't "pretend" to be s..."What astonishes and frankly appals me is the vast number of women leaving five star reviews and hoping that Maeve and Josh will finally get it together in the next book. I keep thinking that we've reached a point where feminism has had an impact on society, and then I read the five star reviews for a book like this and think we really haven't moved on since the 1950s at all. You'd think after the #MeToo movement women wouldn't be feeling titillated by the idea of a vulnerable female employee being harassed by a male boss!
Yes and there's other things too--Maeve is in a fragile state she just got horribly abused by someone she trusted, the last thing she needs is an unavailable man in a committed relationship with someone else double dealing, sexually harassing and giving mixed messages. What was Jane Casey thinking??? Ooh, Mr. Perfect! It was such a disconnect from the last book. She could have built on the closeness and understanding from the end of A Cutting Place and made Josh grow up and start being honest. Instead she regressed both of them. Honestly I think a lot of readers are in denial and blinding themselves to the way this has gone absolutely wrong.
