A wounded veteran of the Iraq war returns to a London landscape
just as threatening.Since his Scimitar tank was bombed, Lt. Charles
Acland, the sole survivor, has been in no mood to brag about his
alleged good fortune. He's sustained serious head injuries, lost an
eye and become even more skittish about being touched than he was
before. Even so, hospital psychiatrist Dr. Robert Willis notes that
he's resolute in expressing his wishes about practically
everything. On one point he's especially adamant: He wants no
further contact with Jennifer Morley, the stage actress with whom
he broke off his engagement just before he left for the front. In
the fullness of time she turns up at his bedside, and sparks fly
over the sharply differing accounts the two lovebirds offer of
their relationship and its abrupt ending. What does their abortive
romance have to do with the murderous attacks on a series of
inoffensive men, most of them gay or bisexual? For a long time it
seems that the only connection is that they're all in the same
book. But Det. Supt. Brian Jones, who heads the inquiry into the
beatings, finds more and more links that can't be coincidental,
especially after Acland, who's checked himself out of the hospital
and fallen in with a no-nonsense lesbian physician and her
pub-owning partner, turns out to be connected to three different
victims: one who drank at his pub, one he quarreled with shortly
before the victim was attacked and one whose cell phone he gives
the police. Despite the red herrings provided by a diabetic young
runaway and the homeless man who befriends him, the net tightens
around Acland, whose torment is so piercing he might be a holdover
from Walters's last outing in Iraq (The Devil's Feather,
2006).Forget the tangled mystery. The dance of death between Acland
and his ex-lover is harrowing. (Kirkus Reviews)
When Lieutenant Charles Acland is flown home from Iraq with serious
head injuries, he faces not only permanent disfigurement but also
an apparent change to his previously outgoing personality. Crippled
by migraines, and suspicious of his psychiatrist, he begins to
display sporadic bouts of aggression, particularly against women,
especially his ex-fiancee who seems unable to accept that the
relationship is over. After his injuries prevent his return to the
army, he cuts all ties with his former life and moves to London.
Alone and unmonitored, he sinks into a private world of guilt and
paranoid distrust ...until a customer annoys him in a Bermondsey
pub and he attracts the attention of local police investigating
three murders which appear to have been motivated by extreme rage
...Under suspicion, Acland is forced to confront the real issues
behind his isolation. How much control does he have over the dark
side of his personality? Do his migraines contribute to his rages?
Has he always been the duplicitous chameleon that his ex-fiancee
claims? And why if he hates women does he look to a woman for help?
General
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