Phoenix Book Reviews would like to thank John for his review
John Van der Kiste lives in Devon. A library assistant, former DJ and musician, he has written over twenty books, mostly historical or musical biographies, and reviewed records and books for national and local journals and fanzines.
On the surface, life looks pretty good for 20-something Suzanne, who lives with her boyfriend Carl, an undistinguished but apparently successful painter in St Ives. An unreconstructed hippie from the US, who has christened her his 'lady of the harbour' (yes, he was brought up on Leonard Cohen), he may be almost twice her age, but she is his whole world and he is passionately protective towards her.
They have a few local friends, like Will, owner of the Logan Gallery and a regular visitor to their house every time he makes a sale of one of Carl's pictures, and Mariette, the kind-hearted extrovert library assistant whose racy conversation makes Suzanne blush deeply and roll around with laughter at the same time. There's also the sad ageing loud-mouthed drunken Fenella, a pest whose hand appears never far from Carl's bottom whenever they set foot inside the pub, but every rose has its thorn.
But Suzanne still has dreadful recurring nightmares. Orphaned at the age of three when her parents were killed in a road accident, she was brought up by her grandmother who had her educated privately as she was bullied so much at school. When Gran became terminally ill with cancer, she arranged for a marriage between Suzanne and the Rev. Robert Foster, a fine upstanding man of the cloth in public, but an alcoholic, oversexed wife-beater in his own home.
Carl rescued her from this hell on earth and she left London for Cornwall with him. It seems the nightmares are becoming far less frequent, until a spate of poison pen letters and graffiti - on their van, on their front door - bring them on again. Suzanne and Carl are being watched. Convinced that unfinished business from her past has come back to haunt her, she goes to the police and makes a shattering confession. To her mortification, they think she is being silly and wasting their time with lies, and Carl, beside himself at what she has gone and done without consulting him, takes her away to a small hut in a deserted field miles away from anywhere. He assures her that it's merely for her safety, but all too soon it dawns on her that there are more sinister reasons.
He too has a past, so horrifying that she can't take it in at first. That's as far as I can go without spoiling the story.
Best described as a psychological thriller, it really is a gripping story, and as it went on I found it increasingly hard to put down. In the opening chapters, Suzanne comes across as one of life's perpetual victims. The only people who ever really cared for her were her Gran and Carl, but one is dead and the other turns out to be far from the guardian angel she thought he was. At times, she seems an unlikely heroine, so pathetically sheltered - she's never had a bank account, or been allowed to look for the job she wants, for example - that you wonder how a woman like that can possibly survive on her own.
Put a tale like that against the setting of life in a Cornish town, with occasional interludes in which the centre of action shifts to London and Miami, and you have a pretty compelling read. Ms Bonner is a former showbiz editor for the 'Daily Mirror' and 'Mail on Sunday'; this is her fifth novel, and after reading this, I'd certainly welcome a chance to try the others.
Publisher: Arrow
ISBN: 0 09 928092 2
Price: £5.99 p/b
Date Reviewed: August 2002
John's Rating: 5/5
