Content area
Full Text
There was a time when Ruth Rendell reigned supreme as the queen of a particularly dark, particularly British type of psychological suspense novel.
The first serious challenge to this absolute monarchy came from Frances Fyefield and Minette Walters, but that exclusive club of three has now been expanded to include Den-ise Mina and, not before time, Laura Wilson, whose latest novel A Thousand Lies (Orion, pounds 9.99) secures her place near the top of the crime writing Premiership.
A Thousand Lies is the unravelling of several interlinked mysteries. The gutsy heroine, journalist Amy Vaughn, is clearing out her late mother's flat when she discovers letters and newspaper clippings relating to a notorious murder case of 1987, when Sheila Shand was given a suspended sentence for killing her sadistic, child- abusing father.
With a background of psychological abuse of her own, both from her mother and an absentee conman father (a character worthy of a place in a John le Carre novel), Amy is intrigued by the Shand case and on investigation it becomes clear that even two decades on, there is much still to be unearthed, including, literally, two skeletons in the local woods.
The Crime Writers Association recently announced their famous Gold Dagger award this year...