Reviewed by John Cairns
A decade has passed since the first appearance of Faith (Orion Books, 2000, reissued 2005, 465 pages), a novel by British author Peter James about an unhappy heroine tormented by her husband, a mentally scarred plastic surgeon. That's long enough for this review to begin in unusual circumstances.
As my dog and I walked across Hong Kong's Lamma Island on a Sunday afternoon, we noticed several people rummaging through items on the ground by a row of rubbish bins. Approaching, I discerned a heap of paperback books. Someone, probably moving away, had tossed out dozens of novels.
Always eager to read, I joined the kneeling scavengers who poked at the books, lifting or turning them to see the titles. My prospecting produced just one gem, Faith. Its spine had broken and pages dangled, precariously close to fluttering away, but I scooped up this treasure because I recognized and respected its author.
Delicately handling the damaged book, I soon began to read…. The protagonist, Faith Ransome, lacks faith in her marriage to Ross, a demanding, ill-tempered, sometimes violent partner. “Had there been a point in the past 12 years at which Ross, the kind, caring, fun-loving, young houseman she had loved to death had turned into the vile-tempered monster whose arrival home she dreaded?”
Must Faith, whose health turns frail, forfeit all prospects for happiness by staying with the ruthless Ross? Does she dare to risk his fury by taking their son Alec and leaving? What if she meets a kinder, more engaging man, a rival doctor even, willing to help her?
Endurance has its limits. “There was a borderline in life. You could push people up to it, but then no further. Beyond that everything changed irrevocably…. That was where she was now. That was how far Ross had pushed her.”
Gaining momentum with each page, James tells a tense tale of treachery, family violence, medical malpractice and emotions run amuck. In the real world, too many women will recognize aspects of Faith's dilemma.
Critical of domestic abuse, the story also hints at hostility toward much of the medical industry. “…he knew that Moliou-Orelan wasn't interested in developing a drug that would beat Lendt's, or any other disease. There was much more money in keeping people dependent on medication for years and years than in curing them.”
James shows a pleasing creative flair. Not every author can take his readers to visit a graveyard and there, amid the death, shape a viable strategy for life. “You know what fascinates me? It's the dash. That little mark between the dates. I look down at someone's grave, and I think, ‘That dash represents a human being's entire life.’ You and I are living out our dashes right now. It's not important when someone was born or when they died. What matters is what they did in between with their lives.”
Naturally, the villain has a philosophy too: “You couldn't make an omelette without breaking eggs.” When push comes to shove, Ross looks ready to crush every “egg” in the henhouse.
Not everyone survives. Some details of destruction, dispassionately described, make for chilling passages. “The silencer was good: the gun made just a dull phut, kicking up sharply in his hands, and there was an even duller spattering sound as fragments of the back of the doctor's skull struck the sofa. The man jerked slightly and his eyes stopped moving. A neat round hole blackened by powder burns in the centre of his forehead oozed fluid.”
At other moments, the author's careful use of detail places his readers nicely into more pleasant scenes. “Then he lit a cigarette and drew the sweet smoke deep into his lungs. The boat rocked gently and water slapped softly against the hull. Overhead, a gull cried.”
These days, James persists as a popular master of crime fiction. His novels appear in 33 languages. Among his best are Dead Man's Footsteps, Dead Simple, Looking Good Dead and Not Dead Enough. He lives in London and Sussex, England.
Gaining Faith confirmed my initial suspicions. The name Peter James on a book-cover does give ample reason to reach for it and to read, no matter how battered the book and its heroine.
Approval rating: 78 per cent
For more information: www.peterjames.com
(August 23, 2010)
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