Frozen by
Richard Burke
pbk out July 04
(Orion)
at £4.99
Burke, a London based TV producer and director, is one of a clutch of nine new
writers being launched by Orion in their New Blood promotion. Frozen is a poignant
story of unrequited love, friendship and betrayal, of childhood, lost dreams and
remembered nightmares.
Harry's oldest friend Verity throws herself off Beachy Head while he waits unaware
for her in the pub where they regularly rendezvous. Verity survives the fall but
remains brain damaged. Desperate to make sense of what's happened, Harry, helped
by his mate Adam, pieces together fragments of Verity's last weeks. He is hurt by the
many secrets she was keeping from him and curious: why was she seeing a
psychiatrist, why try to kill herself on the brink of a breakthrough in her fashion
business? Questions from the past surface too as Harry revisits the summer they spent
building a tree house and the day when Verity first kissed him then cut him dead and
ended their friendship.
Burke alternates Harry's present day search for the real Verity with his reminiscences
of their time as children, wringing the two plots tighter and tighter as the suspense
mounts. Harry's suspicions and our fears veer from one character to another. The
writing is excellent with remarkable strength of characterisation, there is a powerful
visual flavour to the book and an emotional depth which leaves an imprint on the
reader long after the last page is read.
Manchester Evening News 3.1.04
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
Frozen by
Richard Burke
