Paperback of the week
When a young woman's corpse is discovered next to a deserted canal, Dr Kit Quinn is called in by the police to develop a psychological profile of the main suspect for the murder. He savagely attacks Kit during their interview. But there is still not enough evidence to proceed against him for the killing. A second woman dies in another part of London; a third is almost raped beside the same canal. Quinn, guided by intuition rather than reason, sets out to find the real murderer. But her feelings are as complicated as the case itself. She finds herself helplessly attracted to the very men who may threaten her most. Tall, dark, brooding Will Pavic, who runs a hostel for the homeless, becomes her lover but remains a man of mystery. What is his secret?
This is the fifth thriller from the husband-and-wife team Sean French and Nicci Gerrard, accomplished journalists who moved to East Anglia to live by fictional crime. The pair claim to be an equal partnership, but this is a woman's novel if ever there was one. Actually, there was one. It was called Jane Eyre. The Red Room - wildly implausible but irresistibly readable - is, knowingly or not, a modern version of Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece.
