The Barrens by
Rosamond Smith
hbk out May 02
Published by Orion
at £16.99
Matt McBride was a teenager himself when the mutilated body of a young local
girl was found in the desolate New Jersey Pine Barrens. The murder always
haunted him and the killer has never been found. Twenty one years later and
another young woman, local artist Duana Zwolle, disappears. By now Matt is
making a success of life, with a position at Krell Associates and a wife and
two young sons. He also has a passion for photography and under the alias
Nighthawk has built up a local reputation for his pictures. As Nighthawk
and under cover of dark, Matt can be impulsive and wilful in contrast to his
responsible daytime persona. The police come to interview Matt McBride
about Duana Zwolle but Matt cannot, dare not, divulge all he knows to the
detectives and he becomes increasingly under suspicion as guilt and an
obsession with the case lead him to behave more and more bizarrely. Matt
steeps himself in the missing girl's life, his marriage begins to
disintegrate under the pressure and his career is placed at risk. His quest
causes him to form his own opinions about her death and draws him into a
confrontation with the deranged artist Name Unknown.
A wonderful study of guilt and a story oozing unease and tension, thoughtful
and intense so that the surprises jolt like electric shocks. Accomplished
writer Oates plays with notions of memory and truth and culpability and
effortlessly lures us into Matt's fragmenting world.
Manchester Evening News 1.6.02
(
Cath Staincliffe
author of the popular Sal Kilkenny mysteries set on the mean streets of Manchester)
