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DEAD SCARED
by S J Bolton
Bantam, April 2012
432 pages
12.99 GBP
ISBN: 059306416X


Buy in the UK | Buy in Canada

When a student at a Cambridge college attempts to take her own life by setting fire to herself it seems that she is following in the footsteps of numerous other students at the same college who have chosen to end their lives in a series of radically different but equally horrific ways. In isolation, none of the deaths appear related, but when taken together they present a very definite cause for concern and so DC Lacey Flint, one of the few police officers who could realistically pose as a student is sent undercover to see whether she can discover any link between the seemingly unrelated deaths.

For Lacey, matters are complicated by the fact that she is reporting to DI Mark Joesbury and has to deal with her emotions as well as the stresses of the job. And although Lacey doesn't realise it, he has similar feelings for her, but fortunately, this isn't a theme that is allowed to dominate the book too much. Lacey immerses herself in college life, sleeping in the same room as the student who tried to immolate herself and getting to know her roommate and her friends and acquaintances. The more deeply Lacey digs into the long history of suicides, the more concerned she becomes and she isn't the only one with concerns. Psychiatrist, Evi Oliver, last seen in BLOOD HARVEST, is also concerned and both women are drawn inexorably into the dark web that links the various deaths.

Both Lacey and Evi start to experience disturbing happenings and have to decide whether they are victims of nothing more than cruel practical jokes or whether there are indeed more sinister forces at work. Bolton is skilled at building psychological tension and this book certainly lives up to the promise of both BLOOD HARVEST and NOW YOU SEE ME and for me, the union of characters from her previous stories worked well.

DEAD SCARED is both a psychological thriller and a police procedural and is none the worse for that combination. Less emphasis is placed this time on Lacey's own troubled past, although it is clear that Evi Oliver still carries scars of her own from events in the sinister northern town that provided the backdrop for her previous outing. The book progresses at a pace that rarely flags and is peopled by interesting characters as suspicion bounces around between then like a rubber ball. In hindsight, all the clues were there but I was probably reading too quickly to take them in as the story gathered momentum, dragging me along with it. My only criticisms lie, as with NOW YOU SEE ME, in both the occasional use of flashbacks that don't really fit the flow of the story, and, even worse, in a particularly irritating and unnecessary prologue that contrives to telegraph a major plot point from the start and spoil a moment of tension at a crucial part of the story. But those are small complaints when set against the bigger picture of an inventive and highly entertaining story.

§ Linda Wilson is a writer, and retired solicitor, with an interest in archaeology and cave art, who now divides her time between England and France.

Reviewed by Linda Wilson, March 2012

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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)


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