Mask of Betrayal by
Maureen O'Brien
pbk out July 03
(Time Warner)
at £6.99
As the writer is herself an actress the stage background which plays a major part in the setting of the mystery carries the stamp of authenticity. It not only uses the routines of an actress's working life but also peoples them with the kind of characters she is likely to know, convincingly real people.
Kate Creech, the actress "in the frame" has come to the end of a run playing the name part in Medea in Coventry successfully, despite having to contend with a bout of flu which has kept her mostly in bed between performances...luckily... as this provides her with a partial alibi which she soon needs. She is eager to return to her charming little house in Kentish Town to rest and shake off her illness. But late on the last night a call comes through to her dressing-room from London, a police call. The voice is unattractive and its news even more so. A body has been found in her bath.
When she returns, post haste, to town she finds that the voice belongs to Detective Inspector John Bright, a sharp-eyed ferret of a man who does not take to her nor she to him. But D.I. Bright has his own problems...besides the corpse. He is new to Kentish Town Police Station and is having to whip in a team that is covertly insubordinate.
The sight of the body almost overwhelms Kate with shock. It is hideously decomposed and she cannot identify it beyond recognising that it must once have been a woman very much like herself. She dreads that she may know who this woman is and that she may have been killed in mistake for herself. She resents Bright for forcing her to give him the names of friends to whom she has lent keys, thus betraying them, as she sees it. Certainly his interrogations begin to disrupt lives and relationships. He in his turn is coolly suspicious of Kate as he realises that she is holding something back. But Kate is determined to search for the friend she fears may be the victim before he can catch up with her and, she hopes, prevent him from invading the lives of more of her friends.
Her pursuit takes her into old haunts, away into the West Country and back again, always one step ahead of Bright...or is he letting her run, letting her lead him to those she is trying to protect?
The plot of this book is complex and its mood, if not entirely black, is at least dark grey, with the two main characters, who should both be on the side of the angels, at odds with each other. It is this as much as the excitement of pursuit and final revelation that gives the story its constant tension.
Mask of Betrayal by
Maureen O'Brien
