The Wrong Man: A Novel

by John Katzenbach

Book Overview

Scott Freeman is a man of reason a college professor grounded in the rational and practical. But he becomes uneasy after finding an anonymous love letter hidden in his daughter's room: "No one could... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345464842
• Release Date: May 2007
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 6.7" x 1.3" x 4.2"

Customer Reviews

How fast can your life become a spiraling nightmare?

How long would it take for a motivated computer hacker who has obsessive stalker tendencies toward your daughter to wreck her life and your life with your employer, your school, the IRS, the law? Not long in this wonderful John Katzenbach novel. The Wrong Man is about a family on the brink of collapse who take control from a man who purports to love the daughter but only wants to possess her and will stop at nothing to have her. I couldn't stop until I reached the end.

The Wrong Man Review

I am not going into the details of the story as too many have before me. But I rarely review a book. Though this one deserved it. This book is right up there with the few books I have truly enjoyed from beginning to end and found hard to put down. I am a new reader of Katzenbach. Have ordered some more of his books and would appreciate input on others from his avid readers.

Good take on an old plot

Around 50 years ago, Alfred Hitchcock directed a movie called The Wrong Man, a based-on-real-events tale starring Henry Fonda as an innocent man accused of a robbery. John Katzenbach's novel may have the same name, but it is definitely not the same story: instead, it is about a stalker and the lives he affects. Of course, tales of stalkers are not all that new, but Katzenbach is a good enough writer to make his book entertaining even if the premise has a been-there-done-that feel to it. At the beginning of the novel, graduate student Ashley Freeman has already had a one-night stand with Michael O'Connell. To her, it was a drunken fling, but to him, it's love, and now he won't leave her alone. The first scene with him gives a glimmer of this obsession, as he gets her initials tattooed on the bottom of his foot. Soon Ashley realizes that Michael will not take no for an answer, and his attempts to win her love get more and more scary. Finally, she turns to family for help: her father Scott (a history professor), his ex-wife Sally (a lawyer) and Hope (a soccer coach), the woman Sally left Scott for. There's a lot of tension between the three (even Sally and Hope are having relationship problems), but they will push this aside to deal with Michael. The problem is, Michael can't be dealt with. Bribery doesn't work, nor do threats. Michael is not only determined, he's very clever, and he targets Scott, Sally and Hope as well, using his computer skills to frame them for crimes. Finally, they come to a reluctant conclusion: there is no legal means to stop Michael, which means they will need to act outside the law. Simply killing him is not the answer, however, as it could back to get them locked up, so an alternative is required. While the plot has been done before, what makes this book stand out is Katzenbach's writing.. Generally speaking, Katzenbach's best books are the ones that have a good villain, and Michael O'Connell definitely fits that bill. If you enjoy thrillers, The Wrong Man is the right book.

The perfect contemporary bogeyman story

John Katzenbach is arguably the master of the psychological thriller. There is plenty of objective evidence for that proposition: his novels have garnered two prestigious literary awards, not to mention a couple of Edgar nominations and a passel of movie adaptations. Each one of his works has been informed with an intellectual, learned voice while being grounded in a plausible, real-world foundation. The same --- and more --- can be said of THE WRONG MAN, Katzenbach's newest and best novel. There are a number of factors that contribute to making THE WRONG MAN Katzenbach's most readable and accessible work to date, perfect in nearly every way. The plot is strong, riveting and terrifying, given its up close and personal manifestation of romantic obsession. A young woman named Ashley Freeman momentarily becomes involved with Michael O'Connell, a violent mass of contradictory loose ends and crossed wires who at the same time is possessed with a canny and savage intelligence. Ashley attempts to terminate the relationship, which O'Connell will not tolerate; he continues to pursue Ashley, both literally and figuratively. Ashley's parents, divorced for several years and still struggling with the issues that ended their own relationship, mean well but are woefully ill-prepared to assist their daughter when she comes to them for help. Scott Freeman is a college professor whose street smarts do not extend much farther than the walls of his classroom. Sally Freeman-Richards is an attorney toiling at the low end of a divorce and real estate practice that requires little heavy physical or intellectual lifting other than by rote. Sally's relationship with Hope Frazier, her life partner, is fraying around the edges for reasons that neither woman is able to articulate or prevent. Sally's reliance on the rules and order of law is of little use when dealing with O'Connell, who uses and skirts the system with impunity. As Scott, Sally and Hope come together uneasily to develop and execute an effective plan to deal with the situation, they slowly begin to realize that the conventional order of their respective lives will not provide them with a solution. The beauty of THE WRONG MAN, however, is not the implementation of their plan, or even how well or badly it works. While those factors would have been enough to create an engrossing story, what ultimately drives this tale at lightning speed from page to page is the quiet but electrifying interplay among the characters as they slowly work toward a common goal. As their individual and occasionally secretive plans threaten to inadvertently subvert it, O'Connell's coldly brilliant actions play havoc on each of their lives. This is the perfect contemporary bogeyman story. People like O'Connell exist; as I write this, the news wires are reporting that a popular 19-year-old film and music starlet is taking action against a man whose behavior, as described, sounds uncannily like O'Connell's. THE WRONG MAN may be fiction,

Chilling, Frightening, I Couldn't Put it Down

Ashley Freeman, a student at Boston College, had a little too much to drink one night and wound up in bed with Michael O'Connell, a guy who is definitely the kind of boy a mother wants her darling daughter to have anything to do with. O'Connell, who has absolutely no likable qualities, will soon rain down all kinds of destruction and pain on Ashley's family, because he believes they are keeping the woman he loves from him. John Katzenbach has not only done an excellent job of creating a mentally deranged stalker, who I guarantee you're going to hate, he's also painted the picture of a family at the edge of their wits. How far will they go? What laws will they break to protect themselves from this evil that wants to engulf them. They say hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, try scorning a madman and see what happens. This is a chilling book, frightening. But it's very good and I couldn't put it down.