The Red Room

Interview people in police custody is part of Kit Quinn's job. But when Michael Doll, a disturbed derelict caught hanging around a London schoolyard, breaks a mug and tears up her face during questioning, he also cracks her compisure and self confidence. The incident leaves her with recurring dreams of a red room, where nightmares become real... Three months later, Kit is again called upon to talk to Michael Doll after the police pick him up for the murder of a teenage runaway. Her colleagues in the department think that involving Kit in the case might help her recovery and put Doll behind bars for good. It doesn't do either. For Kit believes Doll didn't do it, and he walks free. Touched by the fate of the homeless girl, Kit becomes involved in a dangerous, deadly inquiry. But when she links the teenager's murder to the high-profile case of a pretty blond housewife, abducted in broad daylight and killed, the main figure in the middle of it all is...Michael Doll. As her investigation continues, Kit finds him always in the shadows. Outside her doorway. Inside her apartment. Calling her on the phone. Wanting to love her. Yet, even with her fear escalating, Kit has the gut feeling that Doll isn't a killer. Even more frightening is her suspicion about who is... In her previous books, Nicci French claimed the territory of violent obsession as her own. Here she explores the geography of the twisted psyche even more deeply, breaking new ground as she opens up the dark places in the human mind...and reveals the red room, a place of nightmares, inside us all.

Nicci French has written another wonderful trilling novel. The begining was a little harder to get into than her other novels. But still worth it. I couldn't put this book down. There is so many twist and turns that you just want to find out who did it and why. I doesn't quite make sense until the very end and she hits you with another twist. I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys mysteries and pshyco thillers. If you enjoy Nicci French You must read "Benenth the Skin" That is her best novel!

Savagely attacked by a disturbed suspect in police custody, London psychiatrist Kit Quinn is left with a cheek-bisecting scar and recurring nightmares of a red, blood-spattered room where the things she most fears lurk. While understandably leery when asked three months later to evaluate the same man, now suspected of a brutal murder, Kit agrees, partly to face those fears. But she baffles and infuriates the police with her conviction that Michael Doll, however twisted and repugnant he may be, is not the killer.Spinning out a complex plot in which Kit finds herself drawn into the life of Lianne, the murdered homeless girl, French (actually a husband-and-wife writing team) delivers a suspenseful, ruminative exploration of loneliness, alienation and unspoken fears in this third novel. While probing the girl's short life, Kit begins an affair with the brooding, antisocial director of an ask-no-questions homeless shelter, Will Pavic. Still reeling from a recent painful break-up, Kit is cautious but full of longing. Michael Doll's desire is clumsier. He begins to stalk Kit, following her, waiting outside her house, making heart-wrenching and scary appeals for her attention. "He was like my recurring nightmare, come to squat in the corner of my flat."Another woman is murdered, an affluent, attractive, blond mother and Lianne is all but forgotten. Until Kit tenuously links the two murders. The police scoff, convinced Doll's attack scarred her wits as well as her face, but Kit doggedly pursues her "feeling," trying to find a connection between the two disparate women. No surprise, the smug police get their comeuppance but not before considerable more harm is done.French, reminiscent of Minette Walters or Frances Fyfield, creates rich characters, believable in a wide range of opacity, deceptiveness, derangement and anguish as well as more ordinary day-to-day behaviors. The plot is thoroughly perplexing and the ending caps the suspense nicely, with one last turn of the psychological knife.

The Stretton Green Police ask Market Hill Hospital for the Criminally Insane and Welborn Clinic Dr. Katherine "Kit" Quinn to evaluate Michael Doll. Parents have complained about the seemingly disturbed young male hanging around elementary schools and since he has a bit of a record for exposure, the police want a professional psychiatric opinion. However, in front of DI Furth, Michael smashes a mug and uses a sharp piece of glass to carve up Kit's face. A few months later, Kit is out of the hospital having physically recovered except for a scar, but suffers nightmares from the assault. When DI Furth asks for her help with the murder investigation of a female teenager in which Michael is the prime suspect, a reluctant Kit agrees because she knows she must "humanize" her demon. Perhaps if Kit knew what is in store for her with this case, she would have said no and preferred to lived with her demonizing Doll. THE RED ROOM is an exciting psychological thriller starring a great lead character psychologically suffering from the aftermath of the brutal attack by Michael. Kit knows she must confront the evil she has painted on the face of her attacker. Once she succeeds in de-demonizing her assailant, Kit still cannot let go of the case as her need to do the right thing propels her to continue to work on the investigation. It is her character that turns Nicci French's tale into an absorbing chiller that never allows the audience to catch their breath.Harriet Klausner

Dr. Kit Quinn is used to interviewing people in police custody, but nothing could prepare her for Michael Doll. Doll, picked up for questioning after being caught hanging around a school yard, is unlike anyone Kit has ever interviewed, he is handsome, smart, and in a split second he destroys her life.During a routine questioning, Kit takes her eyes off of Doll for a second, and in that second she hears a shattering sound, the next thing she knows blood is pouring down her face, because Doll has attacked her face with a broken mug, crippling her beauty, and shattering her confidence.Three months later, suffering from nightmares of the attack, Kit is asked to help the police once again. This time a teenage runaway has been murdered, and YES, Michael Doll is the key suspect. Putting aside her own fears, Kit agrees to interview Doll, only to find there is not enough evidence to pin the murder on him, and he is set free.Further investigating this crime will lead Kit to a link of another murder, this one a housewife abducted in broad daylight and killed, the main figure in this murder is, YES, Michael Doll.As the investigations heat up, Kit starts receiving phone calls, break-ins in her apartment, and the feeling of being followed. And, the person always lurking in the shadows is, you guessed it, Michael Doll.Still NOT convinced Doll is the killer, Kit delves deeper into the crimes, only to bring her fears to a shattering conclusion, as she suspects who the real killer is.`The Red Room' is a real grabber, it starts full steam, and just keeps gaining momentum as it hurdles to it's shocking climax. Just as the reader thinks they have figured out the puzzle, Ms. French throws in a new twist to keep us guessing. Well written, briskly paced, and an expertly executed plot, keeps `The Red Room' way ahead of many novels in the thriller genre.Nicci French has made the obsession territory her own, and she deserves it, for her novels are always entertaining. Taking everyday characters and throwing them into an all-too-plausible (nightmare) scenario, Ms. French gives her readers a terrifying journey through the dark side of the human psyche.After two previous bestsellers, Nicci French out does herself, by going one step further in revealing the nightmares that live inside us all. A MUST read!Nick Gonnella