Tangled Web UK Review October 2000
Chained by
Lauren Henderson
pbk out June 00
(Hutchinson)
at £9.99
Sam Jones wakes up handcuffed in a cellar with a stonking headache and after some consideration dismisses a night of indulgence and raunchy sex as the reason for her incarceration. Gradually her memory returns. She was kidnapped from the car park at the film studios where her boyfriend Hugo is shooting a TV series. Sam has a small role too, her skills as a metal sculptor and her familiarity with power tools and welding gear have earned her the role of stunt double for the female lead.
Sam has no idea what her kidnappers want - money, publicity for a cause, perverted kicks - and no idea why they picked her for their target, unless it was a case of mistaken identity, but her main concern is to work out a way of escaping from her creepy dungeon.
Henderson conveys well the incestuous and gossipy atmosphere of the studio, the friendships and rivalries and insecurities of the cast and the practicalities of the filming business. Her dialogue is crisp and comic. In using the small circle of potential suspects and the closed world of the film shoot she updates the traditional theatrical whodunit. Sam Jones is a jaunty heroine; fiercely independent, sexually adventurous, with a penchant for recreational drugs, strong liquor and a rampant appetite for high cholesterol food.
Originally appeared in Manchester Evening News 15/9/00
(
Cath Staincliffe
- Author of the highly acclaimed Sal Kilkenny Mysteries set on the Mean Streets of Manchester)
