Thicker Than Water

Steadily accelerating psychological suspense marks this debut about a Welsh doctor's attempt to put his life together after the death of his pregnant wife. Six months after Jo was killed in a heinous, apparently intentional hit-and-run, Cardiff physician Sam Crawford is still haunted by grief. Obsessively he plays the answering-machine tape of his wife's last message, and he can't shake nightmares about the childhood death of a young cousin. Jo's twin sister, Debbie, whose fertility problems seem exacerbated by a post-viral weakness, insists that she still feels Jo's presence. Sam meets with, and is drawn to, Chloe, his wife's former colleague, but odd occurrences keep him off balance: the scent of Jo's perfume pervades his apartment; her favorite magazines appear with pages about mothers and babies marked; on a new phone message, Jo's voice asks for help. Jones suggests possible explanations in engrossing cinematic scenes, one with a madman in a psychiatric hospital and another with a philandering partner. Although Sam might have more quickly tumbled to the real culprit, Jones's tale engages all the way to the Grand Guignol climax. (June)