With My Little Eye is the latest mystery/ thriller from stellar writer Joshilyn Jackson. The tale of a good actress with a very bad fan, it highlights the struggles women face in dealing with stalkers.

Meribel Mills is initially unphased by the obsessive, peculiar mail she receives. The letters are going to her agent, not her home, and disturbing messages are par for the course for even B-list actresses. The creepy missives, written in the fruit-scented markers popular amongst elementary school children, are mostly benign and simply get filed away in Meribel’s just-in-case folder. Then they begin to be not so harmless. The notes now arrive at her house and they include drawings of a naked Meribel tied up or chopped into pieces. When items start to go missing from her home and she smells a strange cologne on her bed sheets, Meribel decides she’s had enough. She packs up her bags and moves herself and her daughter Honor from L.A. to Atlanta, where she has been able to snag a nice role on a successful, zany sitcom.

Meribel has hated Atlanta, her hometown, since the incidents that made the place go from hopeful to hellish for her. But all that matters at this moment is that she and her little girl are safe. She tentatively starts to make friends and settle into her new life. But safety just might be harder to come by than Meribel thinks.

The start of this story is more women’s fiction than mystery, with the stalker known as Marker Man only in the background and Meribel’s acting career with its adjacent workload barely present. She is on hiatus when we meet her, and stays that way throughout the text. As a result, Meribel comes across as a very relatable stay-at-home every-mom, the kind who serves uber-healthy meals and worries whether her mildly autistic daughter Honor can make friends. She is also concerned about Marker Man of course, but it is initially a low-key, backburner issue for her since she is convinced the move has brought her safety. I liked Meribel, who is presented as a kind and caring person with a warm and sunny personality.

The author does a nice job with Honor as well, who is a bright, articulate but occasionally challenging child. She has fewer struggles than most neurologically diverse kids would face and has a level of intelligence that anyone would envy, but I appreciated that along with that. she has difficulties recognizing faces, meltdowns when presented with too many challenges, and labors to recognize emotions.

Another well-executed aspect of the tale is the battle faced by Meribel as she attempts to deal with the stalker. She pretty much has nothing but a set of letters to work with, evidence that gives the police zero leads. Her frustration at a system that can offer her no protection along with her helplessness when it comes to figuring out exactly what to do to make it end is very relatable. The story shows how vulnerable anyone not living in a gated community or part of a building with a concierge with security guards and doormen is.

Which segues nicely into my quibbles with the tale. Quibble one is the move. Other than to show us Meribel getting closure on issues from her past, the move to Atlanta is rather ridiculous. Once she starts filming, she will be on screen and Marker Man will be able to locate her since the city the show is filmed in is public knowledge. Moreover, a halfway decent celebrity stalker could follow her on IMDB. Casting announcements would tell what shows she’ll star in next long before they air. So the upheaval of moving across the country would, at most, have bought Meribel and Honor a few months. Additionally, Meribel is dating a security consultant in California but doesn’t turn to him when things go awry with her stalker, which made zero sense to me.

Quibble two comes from the fact that the interesting secondary mystery doesn’t come up until a little more than halfway through the book. Obviously, I can’t talk about it much given its location in the text, but it is at this point that we get some startling and fascinating insights about a secondary character and the narrative becomes riveting as we try to figure out what they will do and why. Unlike with Marker Man, we are given a clear psychology for this particular person’s psychosis and this villain has a lot of depth and layers that make them fun to read and it is intriguing to wonder if they will be caught

However, that leaves the reader slogging through a good sixty percent of a book that, until that point, is a pretty average mystery. It wasn’t bad per se but it doesn’t stand out in any way either.

I will add that there is no real closure to the story. We are left at a moment in time where our heroes have won something of a victory against their respective adversaries but we don’t know the price they will pay for the actions they had to take to get there. Frankly, rather than the long rather mediocre beginning I would have preferred a richer, more detailed ending.

Another very minor quibble is that at one point Meribel complains that bruises left on Honor due to self-harm were reported by a neighbor to social services. She is upset the neighbor didn’t speak to her first, which is ludicrous. Of course you would speak to social services rather than talk to a possibly abusive parent. Abusers have their excuses neatly lined up long before anyone can question them, and the safety of the child depends on the proper authorities being informed.

Trigger warnings would include the obvious violence against women as well as a casting couch scenario in which Meribel is treated in a dehumanizing manner, mild drug use by teens, and self-harm. None of this is graphic in nature.

There is a romance here but it is very low-key. It plays into the mystery, so I won’t give anything away here except to say that the love story is mostly background noise and there isn’t a whole lot to it except for its role in the suspense portion of the tale.

Ultimately, With My Little Eye is a mixed bag of a story. At the start, it lacks the tension necessary to be a taut, engrossing thriller, but those willing to stick with it will be mostly pleased by the latter portions of the novel. I would recommend those unfamiliar with the author start with Never Have I Ever or Mother May I, both of which are stellar works. This tale will probably only appeal to already existing fans, who will find it enjoyable but probably not list it among their favorites.