A Moment of Madness (Paperback)

I have found it in Hilary Bonner.

Here is a fantastic novelist, and fantastic novel. her experience in journalism make this book tang with authenticity, and the psychology is interesting and seems wholly accurate.

The book is brilliantly constructed, Bonner manages to draw you into the mystery, even when at first there appears to be very little mystery. Things all appear to be cut and dried, but them, about halfway through the book, we discover that things aren't all they seem, and the book really takes off!

The characters are excellently well drawn, John Kelly's decent into alcoholism and sad obsession is painful to read about, all the more so because you feelsympathetic towards him. Bonner makes you care about someone whom otherwise would be considered a pathetic wreck of a man.

The conclusion is excellent. Once more we feel that everything is all sorted out, until Bonner hits us with another twist.

This writer is equally on a par with Minette Walters (which is saying something!), if not better! The subtle smouldering of the tension is masterful! I loved this book, and it comes highly reccomended. I will definitely be reading others of hers.

Kelly, is an ageing hack desperately reaching for the 'big one' that will restore some of his self-respect after years in the wilderness as a reporter in Torquay. Coming back from a period of self-generated alcohol and drug abuse that nearly took his life as well as family,home, Fleet Street job and world renown, Kelly inadvertantly stumbles upon a double murder - and brings the enigmatic, entrancing Angel Silver back into his life. Her husband and a local drifter are savagely knifed to death in her bedroom - she admits to one, but how did her rock-and-roll star husband die?

Kelly succumbs to Angel's spell with a vengeance as they experiment to excess and to the exclusion of all others. Kelly's partner Moira, and son Nick, are all discarded in Kelly's downward spiral to oblivion. Kelly's old Fleet Street mentor, now his boss on the local rag, offers a lifeline when all seems lost and Kelly continues to seek the illusive truth about that fateful night.

The pace never slackens and Bonner pulls everything together with a couple of nice twists and with philospohical finality in the very last sentence.

The sloppy detective work, with modern political interference, is topical but a tad weak. Kelly, too, is weak, sad and pitiable, but not quite irredeemable.

Despite these very slight shortcomings, this is a cracking good book.