* Photo credit to The Closet *
Is that supposed to be horror reflected on the twins’ faces? They look like they’re trying to feign astonishment at a surprise party in their honor. And just who is the fox with the knife? Why, none other than murderous psycho John Marin! Yes, he’s back, you guys! Talk about persistence.
Everyone’s in the process of moving on with their lives one week after Marin tried to kill Jess, Liz and “protective” papa Ned. Traumatized? Walk it off, Wakefields! Ned decides that the only way for his family to get over their trifling anguish is extensive family therapy, stricter curfews, and copious amounts of proper parenting seminars. JUST KIDDING! Yeah, right. The remedy is really a weekend vacation in a ritzy hotel on Catalina Island. I can just see Ned whipping out maracas and starting a conga line around the dinner table while singing “Hot Hot Hot” after this proposition.
Meanwhile, John Marin breaks out of prison by manipulating a female guard who fell in love with him, stabbing her supervisor, and abandoning the guard in the desert. When he learns of the Catalina plans, he steals a naïve, Griswaldian family’s car and then, in order to get the information he wants, utilizes a billion idiotic employees on the island by stuffing Benjamins down their pants. Everyone he screws over to get to the Wakefields gets a section in their own POV and is never heard from again.
Speaking of the Wakefields, Ned is still anxious and paranoid and mistakes every young guy for Marin, so Alice says, “I will not put up with this kind of behavior all week, Ned. I’m putting my foot down. No watching the twins like a hawk” and tries to get him to race her in a golf cart. Classic. Feeling the urge to parent? Race it off, Wakefield!
The twins go horseback riding (with Jess in a bikini) and Ned gets a call from a detective, who warns him that Marin broke out of prison. I guess Ned should’ve watched them like a hawk after all. While Alice cheerfully packs Jessica’s tube tops, Ned scrambles to get to the stables, but learns that the twins sweet-talked their way into going off by themselves, leaving them wide open for John Marin to chase them on a horse of his own! How mid-western of them. Jess and her horse, Black Beauty, almost go over the side of a cliff while Marin watches and “mwa-ha-has” with glee, but Jess slides off BB’s back, jumps on Liz’s horse with her sister, and the horse and twins race down the side of a very vertical rock face to momentary safety. (Black Beauty is fine, by the way—and is the only one in this story I had any concern for.)
As usual, Ned shows up once the twins are out of harm’s way and ushers his wife and twins off the island alone on an unsupervised houseboat in the night with NO police protection whatsoever. They just assume that they’re leaving John Marin behind on the island. Do they not yet understand that nothing will stop Marin? Oh, why do I bother?
Marin clubs an old lady for her motorboat and trails the Wakefields out into the middle of the ocean, where he fakes a sea-mergency that prompts ol’ Ned out on a dinghy to play the hero. Marin steals the aforementioned dinghy to get to the houseboat, where he clocks Alice, stuffs Liz in an airtight storage compartment, and smacks Jess around a bit. Now we’re talking. Meanwhile, Ned is stranded on the leaky, sinking motorboat, feeling “helpless.” Swim it off, Wakefield! He doesn’t though—in a miraculous turn of events, once Marin’s on the houseboat, torturing the womenfolk, the dinghy floats back to Ned. It’s like God wants the Wakefield twins to live! Hmm. We need to have a chat, m’Lord.
Marin ties up Alice and Jess and when he lets Liz out of the storage compartment, she actually tries to stab him with a knife! That’s not the sweet, good, honesty-personified Liz I know! She totally misses, though, and is forced to join the other two, and Marin pours gasoline all over the boat before dumping the last of it in Jessica’s lap. Talk about a fire crotch. As the boat is engulfed in flames, Ned springs out of nowhere and smashes Marin in the head with an ax—only the handle though—and the women rush to the safety of the dinghy. But Ned refuses to leave Marin to die! He goes back for him—but it’s too late; the smoke got to him. Mmm-hmm. Are you sure it wasn’t blunt trauma to the head, Counselor?
Other Notes:
- I’m going to kill Todd Wilkins for being so stupid. As you know, Liz cheated on him in the previous book, A Stranger in the House, and what happens? Todd apologizes to Liz!: “Liz, you have nothing to apologize for. I was the jerk—for not realizing how bored you were… If I hadn’t been so oblivious, we could have worked it out together. Then you wouldn’t have thought you had to sneak around with [Marin]…” As for Liz, “it was hard to believe that she’d been dissatisfied with him only a week earlier.” Is it really?
- Jessica logic for you: “The odds of running into another super-sexy guy who’s also a serial killer are practically nonexistent. There just aren’t that many murderers out there, and we already found one this summer. So, statistically, there’s no danger anymore.” Unless you’re a Wakefield twin in Sweet Valley. Then, statistically , the odds are exponentially higher.
- I like how everyone—even Alice, all tied up and in the throes of danger—stops to admire how good looking Marin is. Too bad he’s so evil, and radiates “hatred the way a furnace radiates heat”!
- How does John Marin, after ten years of jail, still look like he’s twenty? You’d think years of dropping the soap would really age a man.
- Ned’s computer password is “TWINS.” Ugh.
- This book should’ve been called Kill Her, I’m Bored. Talk about a snooze.
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