Thorn by
Vena Cork
hbk out December 04
Published by Headline
at £18.99
A first novel that is billed as 'a mesmerising psychological thriller' has a lot to
live up to. Especially as the publicist has added to the title the tag line - 'a stalker has
found a chilling new way to terrorise....' But then blurbs are notorious for not truly
reflecting the intent of the author. Vena Cork does well to tell what is a story of urban
life and the disharmony it can engender.
Rosa Thorn has to reorganise her life radically after the sudden death in a road
accident of her artist husband. Her acting career is failing, and she has to take up a
teaching post at the local comprehensive. There, she has to resist the predatory
attentions of media-loving headmaster Leo Ratchett. The changes are equally
traumatic for her two children, Danny and Anna, dragged from a private school to the
same comprehensive. When 14year-old Anna makes friends with O'Brien, a
homeless, mentally unstable man on their doorstep, Rosa is worried. Then a girl at
the school is found dead, and her worst fears about stalking and underage sex seem to
have been realised. Her apparently normal neighbours, like Singing Vic and Guy
Gropius, are seen by her in a new light, their activities now seeming deeply
suspicious. The local police think she is being paranoid, and the only light in the
darkness is when the detective investigating the girl's death, Tom Brice, moves in as a
lodger.
Forget the packaging that goes with this book. It reads less as a psychological
thriller, and more as a warning about the isolation of urban living. And the book is
none the worse for that. Head teachers in the real Willesden may not be as obnoxious
as Leo Ratchett, but the life of bullying and intimidation at Churchill Towers
Comprehensive sounds all too familiar. The behaviour of neighbours is all the more
alarming for seeming nothing very out of the ordinary. And the eventual murders of
two girls are all the more shocking for being set against the realism of the rest of the
story. Cork sometimes is reaching rather self-consciously for a style, and sometimes
the language might be clichéd. You might even guess who the real stalker and
murderer is. But the book still takes you on a chilling journey through the fears and
apprehensions that inhabit Rosa Thorn's mind. And carry you to the edge of despair.
(
Ian Morson
Author of Falconer books and short listed for 1999 Ellis Peters Historical Crime Dagger)
Thorn by
Vena Cork
