Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
This powerful debut novel has the ability to lure the reader into a spider’s web. Superficially a romance that soon becomes something far more disturbing, nay distressing as Rensburg proves that love can be deadly.
Literature Professor (and academic) Steven Harding and his lover, graduate student Ellen Masterson head for a romantic weekend in a secluded cabin on the Chesapeake Bay. Though little appears as it is presented, for their weekend will turn into something far more dangerous.
Written in a claustrophobic style, with shifting points of view, the reader soon realises the ground under the feet of the characters is unsteady. Who is the protagonist, and who is the antagonist? This is the question because the narrative viewpoints shift as unnervingly as does the readers sympathies and preconceptions.
Prescient and jarring, this unexpected and unheralded debut novel takes the current #MeToo and male-female dynamic and refracts them through a dark prism making the reader question what is real and what is artifice.
One has to atone for past sins, or does one? That is the question for the reader, as is the adage ‘does retribution amount to atonement’?
The reader must consider that when other eyes are viewing the proceedings of our lives; are our friends, our lovers, and our acquaintances really that friendly?
I have to leave a warning.
This novel is disturbing, nay, distressing – but well worth the journey.
