ReviewBook reviews: fiction by Sharon Bolton, Jane Rogers and Lionel Davidson
Bolton examines the twisted allure of the serial killer, Rogers dissects a marriage gone awry and a husband gone AWOL, and Davidson’s cult thriller gets a new outing
Daisy in Chains
by Sharon Bolton (read by Antonia Beamish)
Mantle
4/5 stars
Daisy in Chains shines a light into one of the most inexplicable areas of crime: why do people, women mostly, fall in love with convicted killers? The killer in Sharon Bolton’s new novel is Hamish Wolfe. A respected doctor with a supermodel girlfriend, he seemed to have the world before him, until he was caught for stalking, grooming and finally murdering three women. Each affair began online. Each woman was overweight. Each one wanted a sympathetic friend who turned out to be anything but.
Hamish’s only hope is Maggie Rose, a lawyer who examines questionable convictions. These are later published as bestselling true-crime books. After months of persuasion, Maggie agrees to meet Hamish and finds herself being charmed into believing he might be innocent. The twists and turns swirl in the final third, originating in a scandal from Hamish’s university days, touching on Maggie’s own past and casting doubt on everyone, from the investigating officer to the suspect’s strange band of supporters. Antonia Beamish is good on everything, from Bolton’s atmospheric setting (a set of dank caves in west England) to Maggie’s unsettling interior life. That she brings humanity to this twisted tale says much about her talent, and that of Bolton too.