The Face

by Phil Whitaker

'It's a wonderful story, beautifully told, and if literary thriller means anything it means The Face. Buy at once.' -- Brian Case, Timeout‘A gripping page-turner from award-winning novelist Whitaker... a suspense-filled read that you won’t be able to put down’ -- Glasgow Evening Times‘Extremely good... A beautifully told tale of how lies and guilt can catch up with you’ -- Mark Timlin, Independent on Sunday‘The book is... steady in its gaze, and deeply penetrating in its insight into flesh and blood... A considerable technical accomplishment’ -- Ian Sansom, Guardian When Ray Arthur, a retired detective, is killed mysteriously in a road accident, his daughter Zoe is shattered. Her need to understand his life, and the circumstances of his death, sends her home to the town in which she grew up. She tracks down Declan, a former police artist and a one-time friend of her father's. Through their fraught encounters, a terrible picture of guilt and betrayal emerges. With forensic skill, Phil Whitaker peels back the layers of distortion and family myth to expose the truth about Ray Arthur's friendship with Declan and their secret collaboration over a dreadful crime in the distant past. Deft and gripping, The Face is a novel about guilt and innocence, flesh and blood, and the impossibility of ever truly knowing another person.

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Sammie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Confusing because it jumps repeatedly between past and present - but then that theme of now/then seemed pretty central to the book and maybe it wouldn't have worked without it. Entertaining enough - but the final outcome wasn't a surprise. All on all "Okay" sums it up.

[Pgchuis · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5* rounded up.

Zoe's father Ray, a former police officer, has died in a single vehicle car accident. There are three strands to every chapter in this novel: the first describes a trip Zoe, her husband Paul, and daughter Holly make to Nottingham to meet Declan, with whom Ray spoke for 45 minutes shortly before his death. Then there is a strand (which I found irritating and mannered) where Declan, who has refused to reveal anything to Zoe in person, tells her all the things he wants her to know about what he and Ray did when she was a small child. Finally there is a strand describing testimony at the inquest into Ray's death.

There were things about the story which puzzled me: why did Zoe's mother abandon her when she left Ray? Why does Paul dislike Ray so much? Why did Zoe marry Paul/what does she see in him? Why, given that Zoe seems to love Ray so much, does she see so little of him? Why did Ray not meet Holly until she was two months old? What was the significance of the photo/sketch of Zoe's family? (Just that it was before the affair was revealed?) Why was Zoe told that Ray wasn't born in the cottage he always said was his birthplace? I wasn't sure if I had missed the significance of these questions, or if they just petered out in the text.

The fourth Phil Whitaker novel I have read and the least successful.