Rapture by Thomas Tessier

". . .a cautionary tale that reminds us hell is a cold place when the scorned lover is a man of means and intelligence."

Jeff Lisker is returning home to Connecticut to bury his father. He drives past the now empty Slaton house and remembers Georgianne Slaton, his first and only love. His father’s funeral provides Jeff the perfect excuse for seeing Georgianne but only if he can find her. The persistence that helped Jeff build a multi-millionaire dollar company helps him find Georgianne who is now married with a child.

Using work as an excuse, he spends a few days getting to know Georgianne again. He decides that her husband Sean isn’t right for her and that her daughter Bonnie might be the ally Jeff needs to reconnect with Georgianne and rekindle the past. The only thing standing in Jeff’s way is Sean’s refusal to step aside—but he won’t be in the way for long.

The most difficult task for a writer is creating a sympathetic villain. Thomas Tessier succeeds in Rapture. Tessier immerses the reader into Jeff Lisker’s mind to see the simple logic of a man in love. Jeff Lisker is charming in a fumbling adolescent manner, a teenager who has gotten older but not grown up, still carrying the torch for the girl in high school he was too shy and proper to ask out on a date. And that is what makes his actions all the more disturbing.

In some ways it is difficult to understand why Jeff is so taken with Georgianne, outside of her obvious beauty, that he is willing to do anything to win her love, including removing any and all obstacles. On the surface, Rapture is a garden variety thriller in much the same way that Jeff Lisker is a garden variety techno-millionaire suffering from arrested development and too many hours slaving at a computer. But slowly, like a wintering snake uncoiling in the warm sun, the story and Jeff becoming increasingly dangerous.

Rapture is Jeff’s story and although Tessier takes short trips into the other main characters’ minds, he remains true to the central action. He pens a story that chills to the bone, making the reader look again at anyone who carries a high school crush into adulthood. Rapture is a cautionary tale that reminds us hell is a cold place when the scorned lover is a man of means and intelligence.
Reviewer: J. M. Cornwell