Frances Fyfield

Page Updated: 07/09/2004

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Frances Fyfield - Page 2

Perfectly Pure and Good

Paperback - Corgi (2000)

First British Edition Bantam (1999)

Staring at the Light
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
Shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Novel of the Year Award
Why should a man want to destroy his brother's wife?
For John Smith, a man with a corrupted conscience, the motive is simple. Someone has stolen the only person he has ever loved or was ever capable of loving: his twin brother, Cannon. Without him, life has no meaning and Johnny will stop at nothing to be his brother's keeper. But Cannon does not want his brother any more. He's married now and his wife both loves and needs him. He and Johnny may once have been disfigured orphans in a storm, but he's changed that too, with the help of a good dentist. Johnny is afraid of the dentist.
Cannon, sometime bombmaker and gifted artist, goes into hiding rather than risk Johnny's destructive brotherly love. Sarah Fortune, an unusual lawyer who has made helping the needy and eccentric into her own kind of art form, shields Cannon and more importantly, his wife, the real target, the one who deserves the worst kind of pain Johnny can inflict. But is Cannon really telling the truth about Johnny? Sarah cannot quite believe anyone is incapable of redemption. Failure to believe in evil could make her vulnerable.
'I am not usually haunted by crime fictional horrors, but if this book had been a film… I'd keep my eyes tight shut' Jessica Mann, Daily Mail
'Few novels have ever given me nightmares, but after reading this I was afraid to go to sleep… I doubt I will read a better book this year' Val McDermid, Express on Sunday
'Marathon Man memorably used dental work as an instrument of pain and torture. Frances Fyfield could not be that crude if she tried… [she] is a writer of huge, weird imagination' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'Darkly clever… powerful and satisfyingly unnerving' Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday
'There are crime writers whom we think of primarily as novelists. They provide not only the expected satisfactions of the genre - excitement, tension, mystery and horror - but the psychological subtlety, intelligence and excellent writing which are the hallmark of first-class fiction. There is no-one higher on list than Frances Fyfield.' P.D. James

Paperback - Corgi (1999)

Blind Date
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
How do you make people love you? Emma Davey, who loved gemstones and life, found it easy. Everyone loved her. Until someone put a black bin liner over her head and kicked her to death.
For others, the quest is harder. Elisabeth Kennedy, Emma's older sister and a disgraced ex-police officer, considers herself beyond love or even self-respect. She is haunted by Emma's death and her own humiliating attempts to lure the killer into a confession. Then she is the victim of a senseless attack which adds physical scars to a fractured spirit.
Still convalescent, but wanting to hide from the world, she flees the comfort of her mother's seaside house for her own eccentric home. High in her disused London belltower, she will be safe and anonymous. But the safest places are not sacrosanct, especially the human heart, and the search for love, as well as revenge, goes on and on, like the search for hidden treasure. Elisabeth must find the courage to face a terror which is greater by far than loneliness...
'For many years Frances Fyfield has written some of the most absorbing crime novels around, subtle, intelligent and disturbing; but one has always felt and hoped that she was capable of raising her game even higher, of writing a truly memorable novel, worthy only of superlatives. With Blind Date she does so. Marcel Berlins The Times
'An urgently chilly, stylish thriller...An original plot, challenging themes and a nicely peculiar protagonist' Ruth Rendell, Daily Telegraph
'There are crime writers whom we think of primarily as novelists. They provide not only the expected satisfactions of the genre - excitement, tension, mystery and horror - but the psychological subtlety, intelligence and excellent writing which are the hallmark of first-class fiction. There is no one higher on this list than Frances Fyfield, and her latest novel, Blind Date, will enhance her reputation. The central character, Elisabeth Kennedy, an ex-detective burdened with physical and psychological trauma, lives in the converted bell-tower of a church. Her precarious and vulnerable life touches the lives of others, dead and alive; her mother, her murdered sister Emma and Emma's child, the friends who help support her, the women friends searching for love and romance, the men who exploit them - and the psychopathic killer who will kill again.
No one understands better the menace of city life, the complicated ambiguities of family love, and the terror of the unknown in place and human personality. Frances Fyfield has always been valued by those who recognise fine writing. Blind Date should assure her of a wider public' P. D. James
'The best female crime writer in this country' Sunday Express
'Fyfield's achievement is to keep you guessing' Independent
'A cunning meld of nail-biting suspense and slowburning romance' Ideal Home & Lifestyle
'A challenging intricate web ... the plotting is masterly… seriously unsettling' Heather O'Donoghue, The Times Literary Supplement
'The book delivers. If you like your mysteries complex, Blind Date will not disappoint… One of the best' Sarah Dunant, Daily Express
'Has many twists and turns and lots of suspense' Chic
'Complex, spooky thriller' Mid Week
'Fyfield's latest crime novel goes beyond the whodunit into richer territory and should bring the author the wide readership she deserves… An engrossing and surprising story' New Woman
'Thoroughly sinister' Woman & Home
'Frances Fyfield offers a deeply unsettling portrayal of love - not as a many-splendoured thing, but as a hydra-headed horror; of mother love which possesses no nurturing properties, but twists and warps its own offspring. The fact that Fyfield views the human condition with a sad yet unjudgemental understanding in no way diminishes the horror. The writing is elusive, edgy, elliptical - no one and nothing are quite what they seem, secrets are half-hidden yet in full view until the final page when the author delivers a twist which undermines all preconceptions' Shots in the Dark

Paperback - Corgi

First British Edition Bantam (1996)

Without Consent
See Review by Andrew Taylor - author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series
See Review by Val McDermid - Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill
The crime of rape calls out for vengeance, but when the accused is a police officer, the outcry and penalty are worse...
Prosecutor Helen West views the whole subject with a jaundiced eye. In this case, she doesn't even like the officer accused, the volatile and compulsively unfaithful DS Ryan, friend of her lover, Superintendent Bailey. Ryan maintains a stubborn silence in the face of the charge but when the physical evidence against him proves to he unusually good, West and Bailey assume his guilt.
Until slowly, preoccupied as they are with their own loves and loyalties, a different suspect begins to emerge. A man who knows the law and how to avoid it. A man who believes that there is no such thing as rape when the victim welcomes him, not any legal formula to deal with someone who brings chocolates and flowers, leaves without any trace, corrupts the witness with her own shame and learns to kill with impunity…
'Much the best crime writer alive in Britain' A.N.Wilson, Evening Standard
'One of her best mystery stories…Understanding, human and forgiving, beautifully accurate in its descriptions of squalid London, which makes this story not only deeply troubling but hopeful about those trying, against all the odds, to make sense of the criminal law ’ John Mortimer, The Times
'A cunning tale which will chill, thrill and inform... a triumph’ Catherine Blyth, Evening Standard
‘Without consent should secure Fyfield’s reputation as the best female crime writer in this country’ Natasha Garnett, Express on Sunday
'Superbly written like all if Frances Fyfield's books… cleverly developed with an unexpected ending ' Susanna Yager, Daily Telegraph
'As ever, Fyfield's prose reads effortlessly, economical yet rich with the atmosphere of her beloved London. Without Consent is a terrifying novel. written with compassion and insight, at times almost painfully moving, this is fiction which makes us both flinch and comprehend' Val McDermid, Manchester Evening News
'An enthralling and thought-provoking novel' Marcel Berlins, The Times
'As gripping and convincing as a top quality episode of the Bill, this is a novel that shows how our legal system really works - for better or worse' Cosmopolitan
'Fyfield's whodunit is finely constructed, both exciting and discomforting - and she is a clever writer who leaves fears understated and horrific moments unexploded' Julie Myerson, Mail on Sunday
'A chilling stylish study of the meaning of rape ! .. Fyfield's subtle examination of consent, desire and fear matches her earlier novels for sheer uncomfortable pleasure' Charlotte Mendelson, The Times Literary Supplement

Paperback - Corgi (1995)

A Clear Conscience
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Crown Prosecutor Helen West applies this maxim with equal verve to the state of disrepair of her garden flat and to her relationship with senior policeman Geoffrey Bailey, although both are in need of a little tender loving care.
Bailey, in particular, is caught up in a seemingly open-and-shut murder enquiry, but something about the case is making him uneasy.
Returning home from another unsuccessful court hearing, another domestic violence case which leaves her frustrated and angry, Crown Prosecutor Helen West decides that her life needs brightening up. Where better to start than her home, and who better to help than Cath, her newly acquired cleaning lady?
Cath is a treasure, recommended by Helen's friends, the Eliots, and her life could do with brightening too. Not only is she mourning the death of her much-loved brother, she is also ensconced in a less-than-perfect marriage. Helen is only too happy to turn a blind eye to Cath's unhappiness, until, as the paths of her private and professional lives unwittingly collide, she becomes a witness to the destructive forces of love and guilt, and finds herself applying her own version of justice.
'The best crime writer alive' Evening Standard
'Be prepared for shocks, red herrings and a blood-curdling climax' Daily Mail
'Glints wickedly with honed bayonets and spilt blood, but where Fyfield shines most brilliantly is in her shrewd and rueful analysis of the ambivalence of desire' Sunday Times
'Superb characterisation and pin-sharp detail...few readers will foresee the double twist at the finale' Financial Times

Perfectly Pure and Good
When Sarah Fortune, with her impeccable qualifications and chequered history, is sent to a small seaside town in Norfolk, she goes willingly. Sorting out the inheritance problems of the Pardoes, Merton-on-Sea's premier family, promises to distance her from a claustrophobic relationship with Malcolm Cook. Sarah cannot bear to be a captive.
But she soon discovers that guilt, insecurity, unrequited love and a touch of insanity afflict the Pardoes and the town, the legacy of a suicide which took place two years before, when Elizabeth Tysall, a beautiful woman with an uncanny resemblance to Sarah herself, walked into the sea and never came back.
More immediately, Merton chooses to ignore another part of the legacy, the white-haired figure some call a ghost and others call a vagrant who roams the beach and haunts the town, harmlessly. Until he insinuates himself into the power struggles of the Pardoe children and becomes the mysterious and cunning enemy of all concerned. 'Vintage Fyfield - tense, sharply observed and fiendishly clever about human motivation' She
'Gripping and disturbing' Sunday Express
'A tense, well-constructed thriller that will keep you turning the pages' Company
'Frances Fyfield is a writer of such talent that her books, however sombre and chilling, are always enthralling' Sunday Telegraph
'This extraordinary thriller, as full of humour as of evil ... Fyfield effortlessly gets into Sarah's damaged but radiantly warm skin, offering her as both healer and hurt in the same compassionate breath' Sunday Times
'It is a gripping and disturbing novel, as tough in its descriptions of pain as it is perceptive about human relationships' Sunday Express
'A captivating, often beautiful novel' The Times