River of Darkness by
Rennie Airth
pbk out February 00
(Pan)
at £5.99
River of Darkness opens with the horrifying discovery of four bodies in a manor house in Surrey. The one survivor is a little girl who it seems witnessed the attack, and is too traumatized to talk about the event. Inspector Madden, of Scotland Yard, is convinced the killings are motivated by blood lust, and that the killer will not stop until he is caught. What follows is a tale of painstaking detection and psychoanalysis which calls into play Freudian theory and a prototype of psychological profiling.
The narrative is told chiefly through the respective viewpoints of Billy Styles, a newcomer to CID, and Inspector Madden, a haunted, spectral individual who has seen too much of death, both in the terrible carnage of trench warfare, and at home. This choice of perspectives works well, with Billy providing a fresh view of criminal detection, and the incipient excitement of hunting a murderer, whilst Inspector Madden portrays the weariness and aching sadness that accompanies the horrors he has seen.
The story winds up to more than one climax, with the inspector involved in a race against time to catch the killer before he strikes again.
(
Margaret Murphy
- author of Desire of the Moth & mistress of the psychological suspence novel)
River of Darkness by
Rennie Airth