Think Twice by Lisa Scottoline

Another doppelganger tale..., February 5, 2010 OK -- does anyone but me have a problem with a book that uses the old "switched places" thing between identical twins? I remember this ploy from way back in the old Patty Duke Show days (sorry, I date myself), and it was lame then and remains so now. I don't care if Alice and Bennie are IDENTICAL twins -- they are NOT so much of a mirror image that their intimate friends can't tell the difference! The most recent novel I read that uses this device, the doppelganger theory as I call it, was The Likeness: A Novel, and I felt that it failed miserably too. The truth is -- twins come weigh in on this -- there are so many variations and subtle differences between even identical twins that no one would be able to get away with this charade as Alice does when attempting to impersonate Bennie. COME ON! What kind of friends and business associates does Bennie have that they don't even realize that the demon Alice is pretending to be their boss? Despite that weak premise of a plot device, the story was interesting enough to give this an "ok" rating. Problems with the narrative include, however, the short, cliffhanger ending chapters -- each told from a different point of view which I found irritating, and the predictable outcome of the whole charade. We have harrowing encounters, near death experiences, love lost and found, and ultimately resolution and redemption of a kind. Still, of course, leaving a bit of wiggle room for a follow-up novel. I like Bennie Rosato and her lawyer stories - this novel however was not one of those. Having read all her previous books, I beg Lisa Scottoline to return to her usual storytelling and typical legal thriller tale. This is a story that really didn't need to be told. It didn't endear me any more to the characters in her series that I've grown to know and love. It was just FILLER. It served no purpose and lacked even a rationale for being written. We already knew Alice was a problem and she's still on the loose. I hope Scottoline doesn't revisit this twin thing. I've had enough of Alice and hope you have too! All in all, the novel was fast paced but offers nothing new in suspense thriller literature. If you want to read it, borrow it.