The Locust Farm by
Jeremy Dronfield
pbk out January 99
(Headline)
at £5.99
Carole Perceval ran away from the horrors in her past to a remote Yorkshire
smallholding. But the process of healing is disrupted by a storm that
brings a stranger to her door. In the resulting confusion she shoots him,
but not fatally. That may have been her first mistake. As the man's body
heals, she discovers his mind carries a deeper scar, a wound that has
erased all memories of his past.
Determined to find her own redemption through his, Carole assumes the
mission of uncovering his dark secrets, particularly who he is fleeing and
why. She finds herself enmeshed in the nightmare twists and turns of a
double history as complex as the DNA helix before finally understanding
that the past is inescapable. And unlike its victims, it never dies.
Back in the 1930s, the Detection Club evolved a series of rules for the
mystery. This novel breaks one of the cardinal rules and instead of proving
itself the glorious exception, it confirms the reason for the rule in the
first place.
Nevertheless Jeremy Dronfield's debut is a tense page-turner that provides
more than its fair share of surprises along the way. Dodging between serial
killer thriller, psychological suspense and full-on action drama, its only
fault is that the complications of the ending become confusing.
(
Val McDermid
- Gold Dagger winner & creator of Lindsay Gordon, Kate Brannigan & Tony Hill)
