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Joy Canova is a therapist who treats people with phobias. She is as dysfunctional as the people she treats, falling into bed most weekends with debilitating migraines. One Monday morning, an unlovable patient bursts into her apartment. Alison is terrified of spans and has received a letter threatening to kill her by pushing her off a bridge. Joy doesn't take the threat seriously and Alison rushes out, only to be found dead beneath a railway bridge in Oxford. Patty and Dan are a young married couple who are having problems. Patty gives piano lessons to children, Danny seems more involved with his hobby, astronomy, than with his wife. Dan plans a vacation trip to Portugal with a bunch of other amateur astronomers, despite Patty's fear of butterflies and dislike of fish. In the meantime, Patty goes to a concert on her birthday, alone, because Dan has made an appointment to look at stars with a friend. She meets Leo Croft, a sculptor and teacher for whose classes she had posed several years before. After the concert they go to Leo's where she spends the night. Leo finds out about her phobia and talks her into seeing Joy to try and resolve her fear of butterflies. Another of Joy's patients, Maureen Gordon, is afraid of having her neck touched. She gets another of the threatening letters, signed "Shadoe" as had Alison. After Maureen is also found dead, having first been tortured, Joy's patients start to leave her. Then Dan is found beaten to death with a handful of rare butterflies stuffed in his mouth. It is discovered that the butterflies came from Leo's flat, which puts Leo into the frame for all three murders. Terry's boss thinks Leo's the one but Terry isn't sure and keeps investigating. There are very complex psychological themes well presented in Faces of Fear. Spindler juggles the phobias of the characters as well as their sexuality. All shades of homosexual behavior are addressed, from the closet queen to those who experiment. Terry's new boss is overtly gay and thereby embarrasses Terry, who thinks no one on the force knows he is gay. Although this is a dark book, there are touches of humor, especially in Terry's relationship with his niece, who has signed a contract with Joy's father, Victor, president of Canova Publishing. It is not necessary to have read the first book in the series, The Rhythm of Revenge, in order to understand this one which can be read as a stand alone. Spindler, an author worth seeking out, lives in Germany, is multilingual, and writes about a London detective, who happens to be gay.
Reviewed by Barbara Franchi, August 2001
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