Delicate, merciless psychological probing drives this U.S. hardcover debut by suspense novelist Wilson (A Little Death, etc.), a study of the precarious line that separates the oddball from the murderous villain. As a boy in the Suffolk countryside in 1944 and as a grown man-child in contemporary London, Gerald Haxton is a gentle, troubled soul. He begins his narrative wistfully ("It wasn't the first time I'd come across a hand"). He then recounts how his twin brother died at birth, his sister was brutally murdered while still a teenager, his father cannot protect him and his mother cannot abide him. Mumsy is the famous M.M. Haldane, author of the Tom Tyler, Boy Detective series, and excerpts from the detective stories provide an excruciating contrast to Gerald's own bleak childhood. As an adult, he lives vicariously through theatrical experiences, seeing Cats
105 times. Despite run-ins with the police, he begins following a young London girl who reminds him of his sister, Vera. Interspersed with Gerald's story is that of his Aunt Tilly, his mother's sister and his father's lover, anxious to set things right before she dies. Each of Wilson's characters represents a unique imbalance between human weakness and longing for something better. The emotional weight that tips the balance to create kindness or crime, a savior or a monster, grounds Wilson's story as well as her style. She is at her best in detailing loneliness. If she rushes a bit to tie up loose ends or uses secondary characters who lean to stereotype, it does not undermine the stark effect of her psychological portrait of a family of oddballs and monsters more horrible and more real than anything portrayed in the Haldane books, which dramatize childhood travails. (Jan.)
