"The Perfect Fraud"

“The Perfect Fraud”

Written by Ellen Lacorte

Review by Diana Iozzia

I have not been so fascinated and horrified by a psychological thriller in at least a few months. “The Perfect Fraud” has two parallel plot lines, from two very different characters. However, once the two stories converge, the story kicks off on an even more terrifying road, absolutely driving me speechless.

I have always been very sensitive towards thrillers, mysteries, and horror books and films in which children are in peril. This book absolutely spoke to me, as we begin reading about mother, Rena, whose four-year-old daughter has been sick with many different symptoms her entire life so far. With horrible stomach pains and digestive issues, Stephanie has been through the ringer, needing constant medication, a strict diet, and lots of medical attention. Instantly, after learning a lot about psychology, true crime, and medicine, I was immediately concerned that Stephanie could be a victim of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. This illness affects parents who find a need to fix and heal their sick children, but in reality, the parents make the children even sicker in many different ways. I soon realized that I was right, after finding out that Stephanie had repeated episodes of extremely high sodium levels, which is often the most fatal way parents hurt their children when suffering from M.B.P. This is a very fast realization, within the first 30 pages or so.

I believe that the narrative allows us to find out about Rena as quickly as possible, rather than allow this disorder to be a plot twist. I believe we are to suspect her and become more terrified as the story progresses. Like most doctors, friends, and family, the reader, like myself, wants Rena to not be hurting Stephanie. We want her to be sick but not sick because her mother is poisoning her. We also grow deeply more haunted and fearful as the choices Rena makes towards Stephanie seem to progress more dangerously.

In the parallel storyline, we receive a more ordinary character, named Claire. Claire is quite unhappy in her marriage. She is informed that her father, who had been ill for most of her childhood into adulthood, has had a severe stroke. She was told to come home. We learn more about Claire throughout her beginning arc. Claire had small psychic abilities when she was young. For example, she was able to guess presents perfectly before opening them. In Claire’s current perspective, she meets Rena on the plane and becomes instantly uncomfortable around her. Claire offers to give Rena a psychic analysis and a tarot card reading if Rena were ever to visit Sedona, where Claire lives.

After this chance meeting, Claire begins to see more psychic dreams and visions and is able to accurately predict all of her customers’ readings. Claire begins to spit up salt water. Claire eventually develops her thoughts and begins to confirm our suspicions: she too thinks that Rena could be poisoning her daughter and lying to medical professionals. She jumps into action, knowing she must Stephanie before it’s too late.

There are some aspects that I wasn’t thrilled by, but the entire rest of the story overshadows them. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Claire’s perspective, with all of the psychic readings. I understand the intention, that they are a means to an end, but it certainly felt a little slow at some points. Additionally, Rena keeps a mommy blog, posting about her daughter’s ailments and speaking to other mommies who have sick children as well. I felt these purposely dumb and grammatically incorrect blog posts felt redundant, but I can see why they were included. They have an important comment at the end of each from Rena’s sister, Janet, who constantly seeks out her sister out of fear of danger for Rena and Stephanie. Lastly, I felt the climax and resolution were a bit rushed. I definitely enjoyed both aspects, but I would have preferred a little more time spent.

In conclusion, this is another new favorite thriller for me. It was new to me to read a psychological and domestic thriller that crossed into factious disorders and Munchausen syndrome by proxy. I was worried at first that this would be exploitative, since there are many forms of media speaking about these specific illnesses lately. I worried that it was a bit like jumping on the bandwagon, but my fears didn’t come to fruition. Although the story included these themes, I felt that the story was not exploitative or cruel to true life victims who have suffered the same fate.

I give this book a five star review out of five stars.

I received a complimentary copy of this book to read and review as part of a blog tour for Harper Collins. Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity. I absolutely loved it.