Frances Fyfield - Without Consent
Bantam Press £15.99
Patricia Highsmith suggests in Plotting and Writing Suspense Fiction that for many writers there is a particular situation which sets their creative juices flowing. Most of Frances Fyfield's novels revolve around the violence that men do to women. Without Consent is no exception.
This is the sixth novel in Fyfield's West-and-Bailey series. Prosecutor Helen West is on the verge of marrying her lover, Superintendent Bailey, though both of them have an almost pathological fear of committing themselves to another person. Then Detective Sergeant Ryan, Bailey's friend and protégé, is accused of rape by a woman who had originally come to him for help. Ryan's past record makes the accusation all too plausible; so too does his unwillingness to defend himself. Helen West is not surprised, and even Bailey, shocked and disappointed, is almost ready to condemn. In their different ways, West and Bailey deal professionally with rape, and know that the law all too often offers precious little comfort to its victims. But in this instance, who is the victim?
Gradually, however, another possibility emerges from the confusion of evidence and speculation. Ryan has been investigating the cases of a number of women who have made claims that they have been assaulted, without naming their attacker, and then withdrawn the allegations. As the novel progresses, Ryan, West and Bailey are drawn by very different routes towards a more sinister figure than the traditional rapist: a man to whom women willingly trust their bodies; a man who has the expertise to slip through the net of legislation concerning rape; a man who makes his victims his allies; and a man who by delving into the history of his dark trade has learned how to kill the most vulnerable of his victims without trace.
From the chapter epigraphs to the lives of minor characters, everything in this novel deals with aspects of rape - definitions, perpetrators, victims, the forensics, the prosecution, and, above all, the shades of guilt. Without Consent is the title: and what exactly constitutes consent is the central question of the book.
The novel is beautifully constructed, with an elegant twist at the end. (In a sense, it is almost too schematic: characters and plot fit the theme with suspicious neatness.) The story moves through a series of short, sharp scenes narrated in elliptical prose. Fyfield's writing seems to be getting better and better - condensed, precise, and sharp as a Sabatier knife. Among other delights, there is a bravura description of two women shopping for a wedding dress.
Overall, though, the novel is dark and bleak: Fyfield seems to hold out little hope for men and women finding happiness together, at least in a sexual relationship. An excellent novel, yes, but not for the psychologically squeamish.
(Andrew Taylor)
