The Sacrificial Man

October 28, 2013
Dugdall’s second novel featuring U.K. probation officer Cate Austin (after 2010’s The Woman Before Me) explores issues of responsibility and repentance in a tale of broken childhood and choice in dying. The facts of the case are clear: academic Alice Mariani admits to having assisted David Jenkins’s suicide. Although evidence supports Alice’s claim that David died of his own will, assisted suicide is still illegal in Britain and she must answer for her act. Delving into the suspect’s troubled past, Austin tries to determine if the woman across the table from her is the vulnerable, mentally ill person she appears, or if madness is merely a mask concealing a psychopathic manipulator. A former probation officer herself, Dugdall gives the straightforward plot line depth and texture through the inclusion of different characters’ viewpoints, while carefully timed revelations add the tension. Austin proves less a protagonist than a featured supporting character, but the result is still a fascinating psychological thriller.