3.5
Stars from me
Well, that’s two books in a row by traditional crime authors who have deviated from the norm. Completely unintentional (on my part) and I find myself wondering why they choose to do it. Maybe the standard crime thriller format grows weary to write after a while or maybe they just fancied a different challenge, either way I’m grateful.
I found Possession to be a little disappointing as I felt there were strong characters who didn’t really get a chance to shine and I felt that some storyline aspects just faded away into nothing when they held great promise. The Philip and Otto characters being good examples of this.
I would never have known I was reading a Peter James novel, which I hope is a compliment, such diversity of style is quite incredible.
I wasn’t left with a sense of the story being complete once I’d finished it – I do of course not mean the intentional part – more that an awful lot was left unexplained.
Overall, an excellent dip into the occult and its various practises, genuinely spooky/chilling in some parts and most definitely an enjoyable read.
Synopsis: After Fabian Hightower is killed in a car crash, his mother, Alex, an attractive and successful business woman, starts to have a series of increasingly terrifying psychic experiences.
Recently separated from her husband, she lives alone, surrounded by reminders of Fabian – a portrait, a gift of red roses sent before he died. She consults a medium, only to have the medium stop in mid-session and refuse to continue, terrified of something but unwilling to reveal what.
Alex becomes desperate; she is now haunted by Fabian at every turn, by his pleas of “Help me, Mother”. She begins to look into his past life, realising how little she knew her strange and beautiful son. What she finds at first worries and then sickens her.
The more she uncovers, the more she realises her safety, and even her life, are in jeopardy. Somehow, she knows, she has to free herself from Fabian’s spirit and from the cunning and evil that she is only beginning to understand…
Read and Rated 