Peter James - Denial

Review by Brian Lowen on show Feb 18th
For once we can believe the blurb on the cover :

A stunning thriller, a tense and claustrophobic story of what happens when we play with the minds of others.

The storyline :
Thomas Lamark’s beloved mother used to be one of England’s favourite film stars. She was certainly the heroine of Thomas’s life. When she takes an overdose rather than face the collapse of her acting career, he decides that someone must be made accountable for what has happened. Something must be wrong with the world.

How could the psychiatrist his mother was seeing let this happen? Doctor Michael Tennant has a lesson to learn, for Thomas’s mother was a very special person and Thomas loved her very specially.

And so Thomas sets out to make Dr Tennant suffer in various vindictive ways culminating in kidnapping his new girl friend, Amanda with whom the doctor has fallen deeply in love. Two other people who upset Thomas are disposed of along the way and the police gradually get on the trial until we reach a horrifying conclusion in an underground bunker below Thomas’s house.

Peter James’s description of events is so detailed that it builds up the tension of the story – you keep wanting things to progress more quickly – you become so involved in the characters and the happenings and you want to see Thomas caught, but it takes a long time.

Very sensual in parts – the first time Dr Tennant and Amanda spend the night together is not your normal two-liner and fade out – this goes on for two pages! Also, we get a detailed description of Thomas’s relationship with his mother in flashbacks.
Thoroughly recommended, but not for prudish types!
review by Brian Lowen