Bridget has a secret―one she keeps from everyone, even her husband. One that threatens to explode when her childhood music teacher, Carmichael, walks into her dress shop.
Can be thought of as an atmospheric tale of macabre multitasking. Kent serves up a twisting and complex plot, but the novel’s chief appeal lies in the tense character of Bridget, who learns that a life lived under the radar can’t protect her from the creepy-crawly things that live there, too.
Kent’s writing has always possessed literary elegance, and that is fully in evidence here. Her earlier work maintained a balance between tense frissons and the allure of sultry foreign climes, but her subject now is the limit to which human beings can be led by the behaviour of others. Few readers will miss the baking sun of Italy, given the suspense Kent engenders these days in her own rainy stamping ground.
