All of the guilt, pain, and ugliness that surrounds the crime of rape are woven deep into the fabric of Frances Fyfield's splendid novel about London prosecutor Helen West and her lover, high-echelon police officer Geoffrey Bailey. One of Bailey's protégés, a rough, unlovable sergeant named Ryan, has been accused of several rapes. Fyfield is so skilled at creating and maintaining suspense that we're never sure of Ryan's guilt or innocence until the very end, even though we know that another man, a mysterious doctor, is responsible for some of the vicious attacks. While the rape investigations unfold, West and Bailey make plans to be married, which is another event made believably uncertain by Fyfield's uncanny ability to probe human doubts and frailties. Other Fyfield books available in paperback include Perfectly Pure and Good, A Question of Guilt, and Shadows on the Mirror.


From Library Journal
Someone is assaulting women, causing humiliation in addition to physical harm. Helen West, a formidable London prosecutor, is drawn into the investigation when Detective Sergeant Ryan, a womanizer and close friend of her lover, Police Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey, is arrested for one of the attacks. While Helen and Geoffrey hunt the attacker, the reader follows the twisted psychology of the villain, who himself has been wounded beyond repair. In addition to the immediate problems of evidence gathering, the question of what distinguishes rape from other assaults adds interest and dimension to a most satisfying police procedural. The London setting and the variety of fully realized characters make this a surefire hit. Helen and Geoffrey?brooding, imperfect, loving?resemble the creations of Fyfield's (Perfectly Pure and Good, LJ 3/1/94) American counterparts Elizabeth George and Martha Grimes, with the added benefit of the author's firsthand knowledge as a London criminal lawyer. Highly recommended for all libraries.?Elsa Pendleton, Boeing Information Svcs., Inc., Ridgecrest, Cal.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Marilyn Stasio
The moves you really want to watch, though, are the ones Fyfield uses to deflect the eye from this lewd criminal and focus it on the traumatized women he plucks from a middle-class spectrum of London society.


From Kirkus Reviews
Helen West, a lawyer for London's Crown Prosecution Service, deals mostly with cases of rape and the often hapless victims she has to persuade to carry their accusations to court (A Clear Conscience, 1995, etc.). Here, Helen and her longtime lover Police Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey have finally set a marriage date--at the Registry Office--but Bailey has a serious problem of his own: Detective Sergeant Ryan, his prot‚g‚, whom he had nurtured to responsible maturity in the force and who's now a respected family man, has been accused of rape by Shelley Pelmore, a shopgirl with a taste for nightlife. Shelley's case is but one of several plaguing Helen and her trainee assistant, Rose Darvey. Anna Stirland, nurse at a women's clinic, is another, as is Brigid Connor, a woman addicted to taking long baths and avoiding the attentions of her husband. Mention of a handsome, bald-headed man runs like a thread through many of the victims' accounts, but when Shelley Pelmore is found dead in a local park, Ryan--suspended from the force but not in jail--seems the obvious killer, until Bailey, Helen, and one of the true killer's victims take matters into their own hands. Masterful suspense, although tempered by the author's exasperating tendency to explore every character's psyche at tedious length and to approach every crisis from an oblique angle. Downbeat all the way but, still, powerfully engrossing. -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


Review
"Absolutely irresistible ... Her best so far. [Fyfield is] setting the stage for the next century of crime fiction." -The Globe and Mail

"Fyfield brings [her characters' alive--.The great characterization of this book also makes it demanding, [but] it's worth it." --Saskatoon Star Phoenix

"Fyfield effectively explores the morass of fear and guilt in the realm of sexual assault." --Edmonton Journal


"Dark, stylish, stay-with-you-at-night, psychological suspense of the highest calibre." --Minette Walters

"A triumph.... A cunning tale [that] will both chill, thrill and inform.... Fyfield transcends hackneyed formulas to offer a troubling read, with or without her reader's consent. Bow to the inevitable and buy it now." --Evening Standard

"Superb.... Fyfield writes compellingly, without sentiment and almost without hope, wrestling with the question of what defines consent." --Maclean's

"Fyfield's women are her strength ... all are memorably alive. [But] above all, it is the author's voice, sensible, understanding, human and forgiving, beautifully accurate in its description ... which makes this story not only deeply troubling but hopeful too.... One of her best." --The Times

"A taut thriller--gripping and convincing--that shows us how our legal system really works." --Cosmopolitan




Book Description
Frances Fyfield's writing has been called "brilliant" (The Cleveland Plain Dealer), "elegant and unnerving" (The New York Times Book Review), and "splendidly accomplished" (Chicago Tribune). Now, in this stylish mystery she hones her powers of writerly suspense and keen characterization to a new edge. No-nonsense attorney Helen West possesses a rare combination of jaded pragmatism and well-guarded vulnerability. Yet, rape is a crime that haunts her--particularly her latest case where all the evidence all points to D. S. Ryan, the fellow police officer and best friend of her lover, Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey. But slowly, as West and Bailey delve into this seemingly open-and-shut crime, there emerges a man whose cold-blooded intuition about women guarantees him a ready welcome--and rape, even murder, without a trace.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

No-nonsense prosecutor Helen West is a rare combination of jaundiced pragmatism and well-guarded vulnerability. Her take-no-prisoners attitude is legendary - she has always put the harsh strictures of the law first, the human tragedies she cannot alter, second. Yet rape is a crime that haunts her - particularly the latest case now on her plate. Especially because the accused is the fellow police officer and best friend of her craggy, rumpled lover, Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey. As she freely admits, she doesn't even like the accused, D.S. Ryan, a volatile and compulsively unfaithful man who maintains a stubborn silence in the face of the rape charge. In a case with a victim as pure as the driven snow and all of the physical evidence pointing to the accused, both West and Bailey assume Ryan's guilt. But slowly, preoccupied though they are with their own bittersweet love and loyalties, Helen and Geoffrey begin to delve into this most traumatic of crimes. And as they do, there emerges a man of consummate, cold-blooded intuition about women and their insecurities, a man whose charm, chocolates, and flowers guarantee him a ready welcome - and rape, even murder, without a trace.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Never less than fine (Shadow Play) and often spectacular (The Playroom), Fyfield, whether she writes as Fyfield or as Francis Hegarty, is an astute crime plotter and a crafty observer of the subtle nuances that permeate middle-class English mores. Here, she's in top form. As her two series charactersprosecutor Helen West and her lover, high-ranking London policeman Geoffrey Baileymove uneasily toward matrimony, a rapist is plaguing London. The main suspect is detective sergeant Ryan, who's not only a fellow cop of Bailey's but his protg. Ryan is not an especially likable man, and his past is murky. His most recent investigations involved a series of rape accusations by apparently confused women, and it's not at all clear whether or not the crimes actually occurred. Two of the women were pregnant and died mysteriously. Then Ryan's accuser dies. Meanwhile, a bald doctor pervades the narrative: oddly celibate and ever sympathetic, he has beautiful brown eyes and wears synthetic clothes that leave no residue of foreign particles after physical contact. The doctor visits with troubled women, bearing flowers and chocolates. Fyfield treads into dangerously murky territory, exploring the blurry lines between emotional and physical assault and the confusing legal and moral definitions of rape. West and Bailey may be put through too many emotional hoops, but Fyfield proves herself to be among those rare crime writers (Ruth Rendell is another) who can address provocative topics with intelligent ambiguity. (Nov.)

Kirkus Reviews

Helen West, a lawyer for London's Crown Prosecution Service, deals mostly with cases of rape and the often hapless victims she has to persuade to carry their accusations to court (A Clear Conscience, 1995, etc.). Here, Helen and her longtime lover Police Superintendent Geoffrey Bailey have finally set a marriage date—at the Registry Office—but Bailey has a serious problem of his own: Detective Sergeant Ryan, his protégé, whom he had nurtured to responsible maturity in the force and who's now a respected family man, has been accused of rape by Shelley Pelmore, a shopgirl with a taste for nightlife. Shelley's case is but one of several plaguing Helen and her trainee assistant, Rose Darvey. Anna Stirland, nurse at a women's clinic, is another, as is Brigid Connor, a woman addicted to taking long baths and avoiding the attentions of her husband. Mention of a handsome, bald-headed man runs like a thread through many of the victims' accounts, but when Shelley Pelmore is found dead in a local park, Ryan—suspended from the force but not in jail—seems the obvious killer, until Bailey, Helen, and one of the true killer's victims take matters into their own hands.

Masterful suspense, although tempered by the author's exasperating tendency to explore every character's psyche at tedious length and to approach every crisis from an oblique angle. Downbeat all the way but, still, powerfully engrossing.