Doctor, lawyer, Indian chief, rich man, poor man, beggarman, thief? Well, perhaps not, but the array of characters Frances Fyfield collects in Staring at the Light are equally varied: lawyer, dentist, IRA bomber, artist, nun....

A maverick London lawyer, Sarah Fortune finds herself protecting Cannon Smith, a talented artist with a prison record, a wife he loves deeply, and an unfortunate handicap: a twin brother, Johnny, whose need to believe that he is the most important figure in Cannon's life sails effortlessly beyond the threshold of mental health and into psychopathy. Long ago, the brothers were inseparable, but now they've taken different paths--and Johnny doesn't like that at all. He is determined to bring Cannon back to him, and no one is exempt from playing a pawn in his murderous game: not Sarah; not her Aunt Pauline, a nun who is sheltering Cannon's terrified wife; not William Dalrymple, one of Sarah's eccentric retinue of lovers and a dentist whose chair becomes a horrific centerpiece that will make most readers remember Marathon Man shudderingly.

Sarah's blithe, brittle independence is her hallmark: "She was perfectly comfortable living alone with her inexplicable devotions.... She seemed to have turned into a bit of a gypsy, encumbered with a small mortgage and very little else, her ambitions lessening with each succeeding year." But whereas Sara Paretsky's very insistence on V.I. Warshawski's wise-cracking solitude, for example, paradoxically signals that those still waters run as deep as Lake Michigan, Fyfield's determination to turn her heroine into a lone London gun merely renders Sarah as a two-dimensional woman with a commitment phobia.

The novel does, however, possess more than its fair share of vibrant, subtly sketched characters. Cannon Smith, trapped by memories of his own loyalty, must realize that even the most desperate efforts to achieve happiness may fall silently short: "There was not really anywhere to hide. From a ghost. A legend he no longer quite knew. From his own heart and the lure of destruction. From his own nature. From a world where he still did not understand the rules." And William Dalrymple, in his halting attempts to escape his personal and professional failings, and his terrified retreats into the comforting solitude of plaster molds and porcelain veneers, is a figure of ineffable pathos and shy courage. Fyfield's skill may even convince you that Willy Loman has thrown over sales in favor of dentistry, putting down his traveling case for good and picking up a drill and scalpel in its place. --Kelly Flynn


From Publishers Weekly
The latest entry in Fyfield's Sarah Fortune series (Perfectly Pure and Good, etc.) sees the sexy, unconventional London solicitor taking on a risky case involving two dangerously close brothers. Misfit painter and ex-bomb-maker Cannon Smith is accused of manufacturing explosives and profiting from illegal business dealings, but his legal problems are nothing compared to the danger posed by his erstwhile partner in crime, his evil twin, Johnny. Now that Cannon has fallen in love and married the meek Julie, he is trying to steer clear of John. But Johnny fully intends to remain his brother's keeper, going so far as to have Julie assaulted and forcing Cannon underground. While Johnny needs Cannon's demolition expertise to maintain his extortionate real estate dealings, he also depends emotionally on his brother the way a sadist relies on a masochist. Fortune, taking the attorney-client relationship beyond normal bounds as usual, hides both Cannon and Julie, but there is a weak spot in their defenses: Fortune's dentist and hesitant lover, William. Fyfield has a knack for creating twisted characters, and Johnny makes an unnerving bogeyman--a pudgy psychopath with crooked, hideously stained teeth, a warped psyche and a deep fear of dentists. The Dickensian cast gratifies, and only a few improbabilities mar the otherwise suspenseful plot, which builds to a piercing climax. Fyfield's offbeat thriller hits a nerve, taking advantage of a universal fear of dental work and elaborating themes of dependency and revenge. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
Attorney Sarah Fortune works to hold onto her place in her London law firm as she collects strange clients. Cannon, a gifted Irish ex-con, painter, and explosives expert, is hiding from the attentions of his amoral brother John Smith, who detests Cannon's wife, Julie, because she has stolen the only person he has ever loved. Cannon draws Sarah into his world of paranoia, and Sarah, investigating John (a successful real estate investor), begins to suspect that Cannon is a bit daft--John can't be that dangerous. Fyfield builds the suspense so that when John, who has mistaken Sarah for Julie, forces Sarah's dentist friend William to torture her in the dental chair, the terror reaches a fever pitch. Nathaniel Parker's narration is urbane and expressive; he shows a true skill for dialects, as he individualizes the characters with a slight change, gruff or mannered intonations, or skilled regional accents. Fans of Ruth Rendell should enjoy this. Recommended for fiction collections.-Melody A. Moxley, Rowan P.L., Salisbury, NC Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Grade A-, Entertainment Weekly, January 14, 2000
"Fyfield's story is so thoroughly grounded in the minutiae of everyday life and commonplace fears that as it builds to its gruesome climax, you'll be unable to turn away and yet appalled by the disturbing reaches of the human psyche she explores."


The Boston Globe
An electrifying, tour de force from a master of claustrophobic suspense


From AudioFile
Fyfield, a London criminal lawyer, has added another novel drenched with psychological suspense to her repertoire. Cannon Smith, streetwise and in trouble with the law, is being stalked by his twin brother, Johnny, wealthy and apparently law-abiding. Cannon's lawyer, kind Sarah Fortune, protects her client in court and from his brother. Parker is enthralling as he simultaneously portrays Sarah's growing doubts about Johnny's alleged corruption and malicious jealousy. All of Parker's good and bad characters are equally convincing. He keeps the listener tense until the teeth-gritting denouement. R.N. © AudioFile 2000, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Kirkus Reviews
A new challenge for the veteran author's occasional heroine Sarah Fortune (Perfectly Pure and Good, 1994, etc.), a vibrant, red-haired lawyer who works for the firm of Ernest Mattewson in London. One of her clients is Cannon Smith, a gifted artist, now imprisoned for supplying explosives to the underworld and for stealing from his prosperous, vicious twin brother John, a buyer and builder of houses. Cannon's aching teeth win him temporary release from jail, in Sarah's custody, to have them completely redone by Sarah's sometime lover, dentist William Dalrymple. Meanwhile, Sarah has hidden Cannon's wife Julie, after shes endured a merciless beating by John's henchman, in the convent where her own Aunt Pauline, a nun, practices her faith. It's after Cannon's release that brother John is at his most vindictive and Sarah at her most heroic, as she sacrifices what may be her life to her feelings of responsibility for the safety of Cannon and his wife. Less mystery than psychological exploration of the aftermath of the brothers' early incestuous relationship; of impulsive, warmhearted Sarah; and of the pathological effects of needing more dental work than you ever wanted to think aboutall written in a lyrical style complemented by unremitting tension and a final ironic twist. A superior job from an old pro. -- Copyright ©2000, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM OUR EDITORS

London lawyer Sarah Fortune gets hit with a double whammy when she takes on a client whose worst enemy is an evil twin brother with a talent for inflicting pain.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

When it comes to subtle but electrifying psychological suspense, Frances Fyfield is hard to match. Her portrayal of strong yet vulnerable women, her social probing, and her superb characterizations have earned her comparisons with Elizabeth George, Minette Walters, and Ruth Rendell. In Staring at the Light, she has created a tour de force that takes her far beyond the trappings of the traditional mystery novel into the realm of high art.

A maverick London lawyer with an irresistible smile and a body to match, Sarah Fortune masks a numbed heart with a string of lame dog clients and a retinue of eccentric lovers. Now she finds herself protecting Cannon Smith, a man whose worst enemy turns out to be his own beloved twin brother, Johnny. Long ago the brothers were inseparable, but now they've taken different paths--and Johnny doesn't like that ... not one bit.

It's hard for Sarah to believe that a man could hate his brother so, but Johnnyboy is truly evil. Inflicting the worst kind of pain is his deepest pleasure and he has no fear--except for one thing: the dentist's chair.

Not since Marathon Man has that chair been such a horrific centerpiece. And not since William Trevor's Felicia's Journey has a suspense novel attained such aesthetic perfection.

"There are crime writers we think of primarily as novelists....There is no one higher on this list than Frances Fyfield."--P. D. James

The new, flawlessly written tale of pain and terror from "a master of claustrophobic suspense" (Boston Globe)

FROM THE CRITICS

Entertainment Weekly

Fyfield's story is so thoroughly grounded in the minutiae of everyday life and commonplace fears that as it builds to its gruesome climax, you'll be unable to turn away and yet appalled by the disturbing reaches of the human psyche she explores.

Seattle Times

The Clammy psyches and motivations of Fyfield's characters are fascinating.

Publishers Weekly

The latest entry in Fyfield's Sarah Fortune series (Perfectly Pure and Good, etc.) sees the sexy, unconventional London solicitor taking on a risky case involving two dangerously close brothers. Misfit painter and ex-bomb-maker Cannon Smith is accused of manufacturing explosives and profiting from illegal business dealings, but his legal problems are nothing compared to the danger posed by his erstwhile partner in crime, his evil twin, Johnny. Now that Cannon has fallen in love and married the meek Julie, he is trying to steer clear of John. But Johnny fully intends to remain his brother's keeper, going so far as to have Julie assaulted and forcing Cannon underground. While Johnny needs Cannon's demolition expertise to maintain his extortionate real estate dealings, he also depends emotionally on his brother the way a sadist relies on a masochist. Fortune, taking the attorney-client relationship beyond normal bounds as usual, hides both Cannon and Julie, but there is a weak spot in their defenses: Fortune's dentist and hesitant lover, William. Fyfield has a knack for creating twisted characters, and Johnny makes an unnerving bogeyman--a pudgy psychopath with crooked, hideously stained teeth, a warped psyche and a deep fear of dentists. The Dickensian cast gratifies, and only a few improbabilities mar the otherwise suspenseful plot, which builds to a piercing climax. Fyfield's offbeat thriller hits a nerve, taking advantage of a universal fear of dental work and elaborating themes of dependency and revenge. Agent, Esther Newberg. (Jan.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal