Dangerous to Know

In this quiet suspense thriller, Yorke ( Criminal Damage ) once again deftly explores the darker side of the lives of characters who, to all appearances, could be the folks next door. Walter Brown didn't begin to hit his wife Hermione until after their two daughters had grown up and left home, but throughout their marriage he has enjoyed controlling her life, relishing opportunities to taunt her and see her ``utterly broken.'' Hermione has begun to balk at doing ``her duty'' in bed, but Walter has his secret visits to prostitutes in London, where if he gets rough, it's only what they deserve. He doesn't notice that his wife is developing her own secrets: she gains a friend in a woman she meets in a cafeteria and finds work cleaning two houses, which gives her two afternoons out each week and her own pocket money. The appreciation of her friend and her employers arms Hermione to begin to withstand Walter's relentless scrutiny and humiliating comments. She is beginning to consider that she, too, has rights when a meddlesome woman notes the changes in her quiet neighbor's routine. Although, in typical Yorke style, the story builds slowly toward its climax, events of the aftermath fully reward the patient reader. (Feb.)