Holly Krauss appears to have it all: stunning looks, a career running a corporate-events company that she founded with her childhood friend Meg, a loving husband in Charlie, and a beautiful home. But like any tragic heroine she has a fatal flaw – extreme bipolar disorder (or is it genuine insanity?), which leads her to a sordid one-night stand, humiliating a male client, and acquiring an enormous gambling debt through a reckless game of poker with gangsters. Half of it she can’t even remember. Consequently she is pursued by a stalker, beaten up by her former client, and threatened by a gangland enforcer. Loyal Meg is there to sort out the mess that Holly creates – but will Holly always find someone who will catch her when she falls?
This is a strong work of psychological suspense. Holly narrates most of the story, up to a dramatic denouement when she is slipping towards death, conscious only of someone watching her die. At this point sensible Meg takes over to tell the rest of the tale. The two-narrator approach works well: from Holly we have an insight into her own crazed world; and from Meg we have level-headed objectivity, and a witness to events that Holly could not be aware of. Also, Meg provides relief from Holly’s infuriatingly selfish and self-destructive acts, which rapidly deplete reserves of sympathy from other characters and the reader alike.
At the risk of adding a plot spoiler, when the gambling debt gets paid and the stalker stops stalking, it feels as if these two plot strands have shrugged their shoulders and walked off stage. They do, however, provide the motivation for the final plot strand, and the tension racks up once again for a fast-paced climax. Overall this is a powerful tale from two leading practitioners on top of their game. And the Penguin paperback edition even has some DVD-style extras, including an interview and a section about madness in films. (Whatever next? ‘Deleted scenes’, perhaps?)
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Julian Maynard-Smith
Nicci French is the pseudonym of wife-and-husband team Nicci Gerard and Sean French. They continue to write separate novels, but as Nicci French they have jointly written The Memory Game, The Safe House, Killing Me Softly, Beneath the Skin, The Red Room, Land of the Living, and Secret Smile.