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Man and Wife
Andrew Klavan
Little Brown £9.99 |
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Reviewed by Mike Jecks |
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This is a hard book to
put down in the last two thirds, although I have to admit I
could have in the first because the scene-setting was a little
over-meticulous for my taste. Having said that, I am typing this
with eyes propped open because the thing kept me up until two
thirty this morning, I was so hooked.
Psychiatrist Cal Bradley is a a nice guy. A lucky guy. He lives
in a pleasant little town up in the middle of America, with a
great job more or less running a brain-fixing practice in an old
house - and he knows the town well, because he grew up here: his
father used to be the town's priest. Marie is his delightful,
beautiful and very sexy wife of some fifteen years or so, whom
he still lusts after and - more perfect - who still lusts after
him, and they have three wonderful kids. A perfect middle-class
set up. Life is good.
But it's all going to go to pot. One night a local teenager,
Peter Blue, punches his girlfriend, steals a pistol, goes to the
church and sets fire to it. When the police chief, a bear-like
figure called Hunnicut, finds him, he points the gun at the
officer. An annoying thing to do, so Hunnicut knocks it away and
takes him down to the jail, where Blue tries suicide. It's after
this that Cal gets involved. He's asked by the new priest to
help the kid (Blue'd worked for the priest as a gardener), and
manages to get Blue delivered to his practice for assessment.
Only then does he realise that there's something special about
the boy. Peter Blue is naive, visionary, and apparently deeply
religious - if not in an orthodox way. All who come in contact
with him are touched by his obvious simplicity and curious
attractiveness; all but the police chief. To him Blue is just a
vandal who pulled a gun on him. One can sympathise with his
opinion. It was he who had a gun shoved in his face, after all.
But as the psychiatrist delves into Blue's mind, dark secrets
begin to come out. Not only in Blue's past, but in Cal Bradley's
too. It's a good read, especially in the last half of the book.
I have to admit that the first half did meander a bit, to my way
of thinking, but that didn't affect my enjoyment. However, there
was one great inconsistency in logic that I found hard to
swallow. That was that this family could be quite so close as
they were written. The parents, Cal and Marie, were clearly
driven by the closest possible human love, almost mutual
adoration; the family had no blemish, no rows, no pain, no
problems. The kids were pleasant and happy, the husband and wife
supportive and understanding. And yet the larger part of the
story is grounded in the fact that Cal Bradley knew so little
about his wife that he had no idea what she'd been doing with
her life before they met. He didn't even know whether she had a
family, whether her parents were alive or dead: nothing.
Call me old-fashioned, but in a partnership where so much is
concealed, I don't think there could ever be perfect love or
trust. People need to give their histories for there to be real
commitment, don't they? Still, if you can swallow this - and
let's be fair, I did for the second half - then this is a good
read, especially if you like the first person confessional type
of story. Whodunit it ain't, because the murder actually occurs
in the last third of the story, for a start! Psychological it
most definitely is, though, and gripping.
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