UNDERTOW

by Lesley Grant-Adamson

Lesley Grant-Adamson continues to prove that she is an author with an unswerving grasp of the demands of the psychological thriller with Undertow, a highly adroit follow-up to such previous winners as Patterns in the Dustand Evil Acts. Her heroine, the insecure Alice, tells herself that the small town of Stark Point is a delightful place and the perfect spot to revive her relationship with her boyfriend Charles. But she grows to hate the bleak community, especially when her alienated husband turns up and drags her into the 40-year-old mystery of a vanished local couple. She then finds herself the unlikely ally of local man Joe Keenthorne, regarded by the whole community as a murderer who has cheated justice. And soon she is on the receiving end of violence herself. Grant-Adamson's grasp of the psychology of her characters and the windswept setting achieve the kind of balance found only in the best thriller writers. There are echoes of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca in the lucid and powerful unfolding of a complex mystery; and if Alice is a very different protagonist from some of the author's more assured heroines, this is still a suspenseful and atmospheric outing. --Barry Forshaw

296 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Lesley Grant-Adamson (nee Lesley Heycock) was born in Islington, north London in 1942, and spent most of her childhood in Trealaw in the Rhondda.

She now lives in Debenham, Suffolk, but during the 1980s and 1990s lived in Islington, the scene of several of her novels. Since 1968 she has been married to Andrew Grant-Adamson, a communications consultant and lecturer in journalism at City University and Westminster University. Together they wrote A Season in Spain (Pavilion), a portrait of the Alpujarra region of Andalusia where they lived from 1991-3.

She was educated at Dame Alice Owen School and then worked as a journalist in London and the provinces until the early Seventies when she joined the London staff of The Guardian. In 1981 she left The Guardian to write fiction.

She is a member of the Society of Authors, the Royal Society of Literature, the Welsh Academy, East Anglia Writers and the Crime Writers’ Association.

Reviews

[Cameron Trost · Rating 2 out of 5]

Undertow starts off with stormy atmosphere and ominous potential, but the protagonist wasn't particularly likeable, the tension didn't hold, and the plot dragged on to conclusion that was predictable and a bit dull.

[JenniferB]

Difficult to read and annoying writing style