Border Crossing

The theme that runs through Barker's superficially very different works - she is best known for her regeneration trilogy, set during and after World War I - is a fascination with the life of the mind, the tricks the mind plays on life and those that life plays on the mind. This latest novel is an intelligent examination of the nature of evil, memory and obsession. While walking along the beach child psychologist Tom rescues a young man, Danny, from drowning. When Tom realises that this is the same man at whose trial he gave significant evidence many years previously in a murder case, he begins to wonder how much their latest encounter is really the coincidence it at first appeared. He agrees to help Danny explore the events leading up to the trial and as he gets increasingly drawn into the young man's psyche, finds himself questioning many of the convictions he had previously held secure. Meanwhile, as one relationship grows in intensity, and the personal and professional intertwine, Tom's wife is slipping away, their marriage seemingly past the point of no return. As the central character, Danny is a masterpiece, a beguiling and convincing combination of victim and aggressor, apparently leaving a trail of broken lives in his wake. His is a character of unresolved opposites, at times deeply manipulative and destructive, at others, charming, innocent, inconsistencies played out brilliantly, in an atmosphere of increasing menace and intensity, in the taut, spare language at which Barker excels. (Kirkus UK)