The Perfect Wife

 I finished reading The Perfect Wife. It's a very quick read, as are all of JP Delaney's 'thrillers'. This is an intriguing novel, a meld of science fiction, psychological thriller, and classic horror--a Frankenstein for the 21st century--and Delaney seems at first on a clear road to pulling it off; however, for me anyway, although some may disagree, he falls short in the end. He had a tiger by the tail, I reckon, and just couldn't hold on. The basic premise--wildly successful tech start-up founder loses his beloved wife and devotes himself to making a cutting-edge cyber version of her, complete with  empathic programming, and of course fully downloaded with all of the late human being's digital memory input. In short, the perfect wife. To say more would quickly require a spoiler alert, so I'll just leave it there. It's not that Delaney had too many themes going, it's just that he fell short of finally harmonizing them, making that perfect consummation that only the most perfect of writers can manage. This is not to say by any means that The Perfect Wife is not an engaging book. It is. If it weren't, I wouldn't have raced through it in just a few days. Delaney has made quite a name for himself over the last few years in the mystery/psychological thriller category with excellent novels such as The Girl Before and Believe Me. Moreover, there were some very compelling and thoughtful observations herein on raising an autistic child, which I can certainly identify with. It is my understanding that Delaney himself has an autistic son. Curiously, however--and this is one thing that left the narrative wanting--there seemed almost nothing of a moral/spiritual dimension, of any depth anyway, in the novel, such as we see in Shelley's Frankenstein, RL Stevenson's Jekyll and Hyde, etc. Whether Delaney figures these things are no longer pertinent, or are passe, or indeed intended to leave them out as part of the tech-mind focus of the characters, I do not know. I will only say that the novel suffered for the neglect. Having said all of this, you may as well know that I have continued on to Delaney's most recent novel, Playing Nice, so obviously I'm far from giving up on him!