Deception: A Novel - Hardcover

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When psychiatrist Susie Harriott is convicted of murdering Glasgow serial killer Andrew Gow, her husband, Lachlan, embarks on a frantic search for material that may help with her appeal. But in going through her files, he finds layer upon layer of nasty secrets... or does he? Lachlan's diaries tell the dark and complicated story, claiming, variously, both absolute fact and deliberate fantasy. In medical school when he met Susie, Lachlan gave up his day job to be a house husband and dream of being a writer after the birth of their daughter, Margie, now a toddler. Deception (and self-deception) abounds, including the inevitable dalliance between Lachie and the au pair, Yeni, who shares her employer's primal hunger for sticky childhood candies. But it's voice, not event, that grabs hold of the reader and won't let go. Lachlan Harriott immerses us in his obsessions; like Nabokov's Humbert Humbert, he repels and commands sympathy in the same instant. He is a charming, comic, intelligent narrator—and a man who might happily see his wife rot in prison, not for murder, but for the greater sin of rejecting him. Susie herself is seen as if through a long lens that can barely contain her beautiful, sorrowful image; what she did or didn't do is less compelling than what her husband reveals (or invents) about himself in his new life after her conviction. Mystery lovers have lately been looking to Scotland, in part because of Mina's fast-growing reputation; this stunning new work can only bolster the trend.
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Deception marks a departure from Mina’s earlier work, award-winning crime novels set in the dark underbelly of Glasgow. Most critics agree that her use of the “unreliable narrator” is masterful. She slowly reveals that all is not as it seems; even self-deception abounds. As Mina peels away the onion, the househusband with tenacious loyalty to his convicted wife has his own questionable agenda. Deception keeps you guessing, yet manages to be much more than a mere whodunit, thanks to Mina’s strong psychological characterizations. These create a story, as it unfolds in the form of the protagonist’s diary, which is “car-crash irresistible” (Washington Post).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Glasgow writer Mina has carved a niche for herself writing about very mean Scottish streets and slums and very desperate and depraved characters. Mina takes a walk on the posh side here, as she examines the case of a woman psychiatrist convicted of murdering her serial-killer lover. Using the old "found manuscript" device--this time a computer diary kept by the convicted woman's husband--Mina tells the tale from the point of view of the psychiatrist's husband, who is combing records from the trial for evidence that his wife was innocent. The method of narration is in itself intriguing. As the husband searches both the court tapes and his own memories of his wife and their life together, the reader becomes increasingly aware of discordant notes in the husband's own psyche. This leaves the reader as anxious as the betrayed husband to figure out how a seemingly happy wife, mother, and psychiatrist could go off the rails so completely. Connie Fletcher
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