Unruly Passions by
Kate Charles
hbk out October 98
Published by Little,Brown
at £16.99
For the first three-quarters of this crime novel, there are few crimes, none of them serious and none of them central to the storyline. Instead, the reader’s attention is focused on the lives of four adults and one child. Margaret Philips is the Archdeacon of Saxwell, a woman of integrity in control of her life and her career. She is happily married to Hal, charming and good-looking, who has sold his computer business and now works for his own enjoyment as a painter and decorator. Margaret’s responsibilities include the nearby parish of Branlingham, and its new incumbent - Father Gervase Finch, a gentle Anglo-Catholic priest who adores his wife Rosemary and their seven-year-old daughter Daisy. Daisy has Down’s Syndrome and is in many ways the pivot on which the plot turns.
These are all decent people with whom the reader soon comes to sympathise - and for whom adultery would be anathema. So what happens when Hal and Rosemary begin to fall in love with each other? And there is another complication in the shape of the glamorous, best-selling novelist Valerie Marler, who falls in love with Hal when he comes to decorate her house. Her love turns to obsession, feeding upon rejection. Her inability to control her feelings is the catalyst that leads to disaster. Disasters have a habit of touching the innocent, and the most innocent person of all is Daisy, destined to be both victim and a kind of saviour.
This novel is a departure for Kate Charles. Deftly plotted and literate, UNRULY PASSIONS uses the format of the crime story for what is essentially a novel of character exploring marriage, morality and the role of the vulnerable. Above all, the book looks at varieties of sexual passion and at the shadowy dividing line between love and obsession. An excellent novel, highly recommended.
(
Andrew Taylor
- author of the highly acclaimed Roth & Lydmouth Series)
Unruly Passions by
Kate Charles