The Voice From The Grave by
Jessica Mann
Jessica Mann's twentieth-plus novel again features her psychiatrist character Dr Fidelis
Berlin.
This is a very well-written and clever book, but rather depressing in some ways. Dr
Berlin has already had breast cancer, now much of the story relates her human and
clinical awareness of the progression of her recently-acquired Parkinson's disease - and
the plot begins with her comforting a stranger in Tavistock Square gardens, who has just
been told she had inoperable carcinoma of the pancreas. The other strand of the tale
revolves around a black cabinet-maker, who is falsely accused of murdering the lady in
Tavistock Square and in spite of being acquitted, suffers racial attacks, culminating in his
house being burnt down. The dead woman had been running a covert vendetta against a
recently-appointed High Court judge, who she knew years before and about whom she
had a dark secret.
I found the book 'hard to get into', as they say, with a plethora of characters - almost all
elderly ladies - introduced en masse early in the book, with no clear emergence of a
story-line until half-way through. However, things picked up quickly from then on and
the intriguing, if unlikely plot ends with a good twist.
As always, personal preferences colour any opinion, and as one of Jessica Mann's other
books was short-listed for a Gold Dagger, she undoubtedly has a large following out
there who will enjoy this latest offering.
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