Review: Do Not Disturb by Freida McFadden

Print Length: 384 pages

Publisher: Hollywood Upstairs Press (September 7, 2021)

From Goodreads.com: Quinn Alexander has committed an unthinkable crime.

To avoid spending her life in prison, Quinn makes a run for it. She leaves behind her home, her job, and her family. She grabs her passport and heads for the northern border before the police can discover what she’s done.

But when an unexpected snowstorm forces her off the road, Quinn must take refuge at the broken-down, isolated Baxter Motel. The handsome and kindly owner, Nick Baxter, is only too happy to offer her a cheap room for the night.

Unfortunately, the Baxter Motel isn’t the quiet, safe haven it seemed to be. The motel has a dark and disturbing past. And in the dilapidated house across the way, the silhouette of Nick's ailing wife is always at the window. Always watching.

In the morning, Quinn must leave the motel. She'll pack up her belongings and get back on the road to freedom.

But first, she must survive the night.

                                                         *******************

My Rating: 1 star out of 5

Word of advice, if you're going to heavily borrow from Psycho, especially if you're going to market your book as a Hitchcock-style psychological thriller, then you should at least make your story GOOD. Also, for anyone who didn't know the original Psycho was a short story written by Robert Bloch (I've been surprised by the amount of people who did not know this, but instead thought it was a product only of Hitchcock's imagination). 

Full disclosure, I have a love/hate relationship with this author. For the most part, I find their novels to be very predictable and their characters (especially the female ones) to be poorly written (as in they make the stupidest choices possible, and/or are just completely unlikable). But when I saw the synopsis for this one,  I knew that I HAD to give it a shot because I am a huge fan of all things Psycho (books, movies and T.V series). 

And, it was everything that I have come to expect from a Freida McFadden book. Right off the bat, we have Quinn committing a (justifiable) crime in her home. And when the police show up, she claims to have been watching a movie. This annoys me for two reasons, one because she was totally justified in what happened, and two the officer just takes her word for it? He doesn't demand to come in to make sure she isn't being held at gunpoint? Or that she isn't lying? Odd, but okay. 

So she makes her escape, and due to a snowstorm (another much loved aspect of Freida's books that I've noticed), she ends up at the BAXTER Motel. And good lord did she rely on Psycho to carry nearly everything in this section of the book. 

Empty motel that doesn't get a lot of guests? Check. 

Huge house in the background? Check. 

Someone sitting in the window at all hours? Check. 

Motel manager who looks harmless like "he wouldn't hurt a fly" (author's exact words mind you)? Check. 

And just in case you didn't already get the references, she even tells Norman, sorry Nick, that she probably won't make use of the shower because she "saw this movie where this woman got murdered while taking a shower." The author even went so far as to later nearly copy the infamous "We all go a little mad sometimes" line, merely swapping mad for crazy. 

But I digress. Despite all of the parallels to Psycho, this one misses the mark in so many ways. 

I had thought that once Claudia (the sister) got involved, things might get more interesting, Sadly, Claudia fell into the whole "I was forced to give up my life that I couldn't afford anyway to take care of my sister so now I hate her" trope that is just.... stupid. Claudia was in college when her parents died, with no other means to continue her education, yet she blamed Quinn for what came after. 

At this point, I'm just going to come out at say it. With as many books as she has been publishing over the last few years, maybe she should focus on quality instead of quantity.