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| In His Sights: A True Story of Love and Obsession | 
 enlarge | Authors: Kate Brennan, None
Publisher: Harper
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $6.79
You Save: $18.16 (73%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 68664
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 279
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0061451606
Dewey Decimal Number: 364.1555092
EAN: 9780061451607
ASIN: 0061451606
Publication Date: August 1, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What if the man you'd loved for years vows, when you leave him, to destroy you? What if he transforms into a ruthless tormentor, stealing your freedom, undermining your sanity, and threatening your safety? This is not a fictional scenario. It is Kate Brennan's life. Kate is a well-respected writer and scholar, a highly independent woman with simple tastes and a complicated romantic past that leave her perfectly content with singlehood. So when she meets Paul—a wealthy, charismatic businessman with a great deal of free time—she's wary of getting involved. Eventually, though, his polished charm and relentless wooing win her over. Things move quickly, and it is only after the two have moved in together that Kate discovers the serial infidelity, the unbalanced psyche, and the sordid secrets lurking under the Mr. Right facade. Kate lets Paul into her life with trepidation, and when she ends the relationship, she finds she can't get him out of it. With limitless resources, he dedicates himself to stalking her: he tracks her movements, arranges for people to break into her home, interferes with her work, and even relocates to her new neighborhood. His harassment lasts for more than a decade and, as Paul is still at large, it continues to turn Kate's life upside down today. This visceral memoir not only lays bare the mind of a stalker, but also shows how a smart, successful woman can fall prey to a warped and powerful man who has the money and connections to keep her under his watchful eye. Both frightening and insightful, In His Sights is a gripping tale of one woman's descent into the dark side of love and how she has fought—and still struggles—to free herself.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
A Gripping and Disturbing Book August 12, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
The author does an excellent job of conveying the fear with which she lives every day. As I read her memoir, I acutely felt her sense of helplessness and realized that a life can be destroyed by the most subtle, and yet insidious, actions.
Ms. Brennan has shown great courage in sharing her story and it is a one that will make any woman think twice about pursuing a relationship with a controlling man.
 Searing and Incisive August 13, 2008
10 out of 11 found this review helpful
"In His Sights" is a chronicle of one woman's experiences with the man who would become her stalker. She writes under an assumed name and does not give many details about her life because her stalker is still living and occasionally still tries to go after her. This is a book written with a lot of fear--a lot of well-deserved fear--and contains a lot of valuable insights about the human condition, insights earned through days and weeks and years of sweating and hoping. It is extremely well-written--the woman is a writer under her real name and it shows--the memoir, for the most part, is gripping and contains a very readable balance of the different aspects of her life with her stalker.
I do have a complaint, though, and it stems from the first part of the book--the part chronicling the relationship before the stalking. Frankly, I don't think the author's rendering is completely honest--at least emotionally. I think she imbibes too much of what she learned afterwards into the story and I wished she had talked more about what she felt at the time. During the first part, she just seemed too naive. I guess this is part of the point, and she does reconcile this a bit during the second part, but I think she could have admitted that she didn't see some of the dangers. The impression the first part gives is that she saw the dangers, recognized them and then ignored them. I also think the way she ascribes everything in her relationships to her familial life is overly simplistic and the result of too much therapy.
That all being said, this book is outstanding. Once the second part begins, the rest of it is all worthwhile. It's an important and interesting journey for anyone to learn from and it is so easy to read.
ALL THE MORE CHILLING BECAUSE IT'S TRUE September 12, 2008
8 out of 8 found this review helpful
Stalk, stalking, stalker - all frightening words. They are words that we see in newspapers, online, or in books. Fortunately for most of us those words are not applicable to our lives, yet we do know that millions of women are terrorized by stalkers. Frequently these women are too frightened to speak out. Not so for Kate Brennan who has been the victim of a stalker for some 13 years. Choosing to write pseudonymously in order to protect those close to her, Kate recounts years of emotional turmoil, fear, aggravation, and anything but a normal life.
Those years have also been a time of growing self-awareness as she remembers growing up in an alcoholic family and the fact that she has always been attracted by slightly out of sync, controlling men. She wonders how she could have loved and once trusted a man capable of such fearful acts. Kate believes that the answer is "...that life with my family had left me with such a high tolerance for cruelty I couldn't recognize perversion when I saw it." Then, as she notes, when she did see it she still thought that sick people could be well, that enough love and understanding might heal. She learned how very wrong she was.
Kate first met Paul at a party in the home of friends. A writer and Bronte scholar, she went alone, comfortable with herself as a 41-year-old single woman. Paul was attractive, a charmer, and independently wealthy. He was a photographer, and the two shared a love of travel. He pursued her and despite past poor luck at romance Kate moved in with him.
However, Paul was not at all what he seemed to be. It wasn't too long before he began having affairs, there were signs of illegal dealings, his once congenial facade changed dramatically. Kate moved out. She thought this was easily done - just walk away. She learned differently. "You can do all the psychic and physical separation you want, but there's no getting away from someone who wants to remind you he can mess with your life anytime he wants." Paul has the resources to do just that, and she now realizes it will not be over as long as he lives.
She has moved repeatedly, still her phone goes dead because her account has been canceled. Small things are moved from place to place in her apartment, people are hired to intimidate her. When she goes to a movie, she first locates the exit then sits in the back row so she can keep an eye on the audience. There is nothing the police can do because there is no solid evidence against Paul.
One wonders how she has been able to maintain her sanity through all of this. Kate's story is a chilling one, even more terrifying because it is true.
- Gail Cooke
 Does Not Ring True September 19, 2008
8 out of 12 found this review helpful
I had high hopes for this book. I myself was a victim of stalking several years ago, and was looking forward to reading an honest account of it. By the time I was 3/4 of the way through this book, I was genuinely beginning to believe that the author either fabricated most of the plot (which is fine, but just don't call it non-fiction) or, more frighteningly, was *herself* the obsessed one.
When you really get right down to it, this is the memoir of a deeply narcissistic, navel-gazing woman who took extreme-yet-illogical measures like traveling under an assumed name (like a customs agent in the United Kingdom, post 9/11, is going to care about a hand-written letter from a small town police chief when her airline ticket doesn't match her passport?) and yet she continues to go to the same therapist for a decade, continues to go to the same libraries for years and years, etc.?
I just finished this book tonight. Once I read the last page, I sat down and thought, 'OK, what really happened?' She never once, except for at the very end, actually SAW Paul. She slipped it in that he had REMARRIED and completed MEDICAL SCHOOL, all the while he was allegedly stalking her? C'mon. So, her phone line went dead a few times. She herself admits it happened only once every two years or so. She saw an acquaintance at an airline ticket office, an acquaintance who apparently didn't even take note of her. Her "complex, modern" alarm system rang false alarms a few times. So does mine. All the time. I can't think of anything else that happened to support her claims of being stalked.
She was never assaulted. She was never threatened; not verbally, not in writing, not second-hand. She never once saw her alleged stalker, nor did she imply that he was following her and was just good at hiding. A backpacker in the woods in Maine asked if he could sit next to her. GASP! CALL THE POLICE!!
Honestly, I am surprised at my own reaction to this, but I guess I feel really tricked and manipulated by this book. There's simply no evidence that this woman was stalked, let alone brutally stalked by a virtual ARMY of paid "surrogates" for more than a decade. I think she is chronically bored, has an overactive imagination, and was perhaps spurned by Paul. What kind of a person doesn't get out the FIRST time their boyfriend says, "Does it bother you that I have a gun in the house?" Does it really ring true that she laid there night after night as he asked and re-asked that question? Wouldn't it be a little more realistic that she might turn over and go "What the hell, freako? You asked me that last night, and the night before that!"
Another lie: She says she didn't get a restraining order because Paul would've had to come to court and be in the same room with her. That is an absolute falsehood. The system is not set up that way.
If I am wrong, then God forgive me. But I don't think I am. Do some critical thinking, folks. Look at the evidence she provides. Look at the likelihood of some of her stories about creating false identities and "going on the run," yet then she returns to her mother's house (where presumably Paul had frequently been a visitor when they were dating) and lives there for a year without a worry?
In conclusion? I don't buy it. In the very beginning of the book, she says she will not name anyone still alive in her acknowledgments, because she is afraid that Paul will hurt them. At the end, she goes on to name full, first and last names of several people who helped her with the book. Huh? I also found it interesting that apparently, according to the author's own words, several people in her life also decided that this alleged "stalking" was a fabricated drama of her own making. I'm with them.
Great biography - courageous account of love and stalking September 1, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Kate Brennan's, "In His Sights" is a terrifying account of her experience of being stalked by a man purporting to love her. Kate's skills as a writer bring her history to life. Kate's use of language, visual imagery and succinct style meant that I struggled to put the book down. At times, the biography chilled me to the bone, at others, her obvious strength and determination to stay sane had me cheering her on. Kate failed to recognize that she was being stalked for almost two years. As she described dismissing minor and major harassment, I felt like screaming at her to call the police. If this book helps one woman recognize her danger and to ask for help, then Kate's effort will have been worth it. Thank-you Kate for sharing your story, stay sane and stay safe.
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