Davis writes with dangerous authority about the deadly everyday. Her work is dark in ways that Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters can only dream of. This is our world, skewed and skewered, revealed in its true sanguinary colours."" - Ian Rankin. ""Lays bare the twisted soul of a psycopathic killer.... A searing, potent, unsettling story reminiscent of Ruth Rendell at her darkest"" - Booklist. Davis follows up the success of her first novel with this feminist thriller. Women are vanishing from the streets of Edinburgh and only one man knows the answers. David is a sadist with a double life. He divides his time between his home-shared with his devoted wife, Jeanette, and his young son-and his Secret House. David's fantasies would become horribly real in his Secret House, where the screams would go unheard. Slowly, Jeanette begins to realize that all is not well with their home, and her husband.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Davis' latest is a sexually violent, brutal, and disturbing psychological thriller that lays bare the twisted soul of a psychopathic killer. The anger, pain, and helplessness David Frate felt as an abused child have turned into burning hatred. His darker self is a tormented sexual predator who only finds relief in killing his victims. But his "other" self has married Jeanette, a meek, colorless woman devoted to her husband. David has convinced Jeanette that his nightly forays to find new victims are spent meeting contacts in the music business. After four years of acquiescing to David's domineering personality, Jeanette meets Wanda, who convinces her to attend an assertiveness class. There Jeanette gradually realizes that her meek acceptance of David's behavior has helped isolate her from the truth: something is horribly wrong with her husband, and she is the only one who can uncover whatever dark secrets he is hiding. A searing, potent, unsettling story reminiscent of Ruth Rendell at her darkest. Emily Melton
--This text refers to an alternate
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edition.
From Kirkus Reviews
Davis really seems to have a thing for the kinds of sociopathic heroes (Shrouded, 1997) who would send most womenor most everyonescreaming away. Her second specimen is David Frate, who dreams of success as a songwriter while he's stocking the shelves of an Edinburgh health food store. Despite his sleek good looks, David doesn't appear to be up to much, even to his adoring wife Jeanette. But David, who must have read The Collector at an impressionable age, has unsuspected depths. He sleeps apart from Jeanette but enjoys hard-core pornography, phone sex, and, eventually, kidnaping and torturing women, who, despite what would be a mounting wave of disappearances in your hometown, unfailingly get into his car and find themselves in his secret house slated for unspeakable terrors. The grim round of torments is enlivened by Davis's sharp eye for (1) the unblushingly utopian nature of David's fantasies (his victims obligingly tremble, cower, and accede to his every violation while remaining immaculately groomed); (2) his sullen rage when his actual victims fail to perform like his fantasy women; and (3) the blackly comic ignorance of his dull mouse of a wife, who, not realizing she's in an unusually explicit shocker, keeps manufacturing innocent explanations for her lamb's behavior and then being shocked even by those innocent imaginings. It's the humor, finally, that lifts the tale above the clinical study it so chillingly resembles. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an alternate
Paperback
edition.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Dark, Daring Psychological Suspense Novel,
This review is from: Safe as Houses (Bloodlines) (Paperback)
In "Safe As Houses," Carol Anne Davis takes even more risks than she did in her previous novel, "Shrouded." Both are excellent, tension-filled novels that explore (sexual) violence on numerous levels.In "Safe As Houses," we feel less like a reader and more like a voyeur. We know exactly WHO the villain is - and we know exactly WHAT he's doing to his victims. What we don't know is when (or if) he'll get caught. And this villain's relationship with his wife is almost as fascinating as he is. Another excellent effort from Carol Anne Davis - and very highly recommended for a fast, can't-put-down read.
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