Singled Out

May 1, 1995
Psychological stereotyping and unconvincing plotting undermine this tale of sexual abuse, incest and murder from prolific British novelist Brett (A Shock to the System; the Charles Paris novels). Attractive, willful London TV producer Laura Fisher has a hard time with intimacy. Her father sexually abused her and beat her brother, Kent, as children, and was imprisoned for strangling their mother to death. The narrative's first half, set in 1973, chronicles Laura's decision to get pregnant and raise a healthy, normal child of her own. She picks out a stranger in a hotel bar, seduces him, then scares him off with a pistol. Twenty years later, she and her son are living together in Bristol. When he is accused of assaulting his girlfriend, and later of murdering her, Laura must confront her gruesome family legacy and the emotional damage that her brother, now a police detective, has been warning her about for years. Brett relies too often on the lurid to pique reader interest: during an attempted strangling, the intended victim finds what's happening to her ``strangely erotic.'' He relies too heavily on childhood trauma to explain motivation as well, and his plot misdirections won't keep most readers from picking out the villain long before the melodramatic climax. This is a disappointing offering from a writer who's capable of more persuasive, and more entertaining, work.

January 30, 2006
In this comedy of sexual manners from prolific British author Brett (the Charles Paris mystery series, etc.), a man closing in on 60 experiences a "second adolescence" after he unwillingly agrees to divorce his wife of 40 years. Bill Stratton, a semiretired television news reader and bestselling author of humor books, is stunned when his self-righteous wife, Andrea, leaves him for a doctor named Dewi. But when Bill realizes that his minor celebrity translates into currency on the dating market, he plunges into promiscuity, beginning with a one-stand stand with the willing Maria (a setup courtesy of his agent, Sal Juster), and continuing with a parade of women he mostly meets at speaking engagements. An encounter with a 20-something who collects Disney figurines confirms his preference for women his own age—wrinkled skin and dentures become the touchstones of Bill's odyssey of discovery. Brett's sublime joke here is that Bill's very late sexual awakening is actually a coming-of-age story. Will Bill settle down with Andrea's old friend Ginnie, the cool voluptuous colleague Caroline, or continue to play the field? Brett's answer is incidental; what matters to randy, ruminant Bill and the reader is the pleasure of the journey.