Superstition

Superstition

by Karen Robards

Hodder & Stoughton, HK$105

Karen Robards is a big name in women's fiction because she doesn't just do crime. In Superstition, she adds romance to suspense and invites ghosts into the plot. The murder of a teenage girl 15 years earlier in South Carolina is relived when television reporter Nicky Sullivan films a seance in the house where the crime took place (two girls who were with the victim disappeared at the same time). Families that have lived in the house attest to strange goings-on, but no one is prepared for the piercing scream recorded as the spirit of the murdered girl is invoked. That the house is haunted is no longer in doubt; now the question is who's the killer. It niggles that voices of the girls are captured on the programme, warning, 'He's back', but not revealing the murderer's identity. However, it would be churlish to question the modus operandi of the dead, especially when Robards' aim is simply to engross readers from cover to cover. The racy relationship between Sullivan and bad cop Joe Franconi is well played out, if a bit predictable. Not so the ending, which is where crime writers prove their worth.