cover image Messiter's Dream

Messiter's Dream

Brian Cooper. St. Martin's Press, $16.95 (206pp) ISBN 978-0-312-05896-8

British writer Cooper here stakes a claim in the territory between mystery and mainstream fiction. In a clear, contemporary voice with haunting echoes of Poe and Coleridge, he recounts the experiences of psychoanalyst Julian Crosfield spok/ss in treating guilt-ridden, suicidal Ronald Messiter, a disturbed patient whose inability to relate to women has driven him into an obsessional fantasy world centered around a woman met only in passing. As Messiter confides more and more of his tortured thoughts, the analyst becomes fascinated by an unfolding psyche capable of plotting a diabolical murder. Crosfield himself becomes obsessed with locating the reality embedded in Messiter's lies, delusions, his surprising artistic talent and the cold, calculating capacity of his psychosis. Psychoanalysis metamorphoses into detection in this unforgettable tale of terrors begotten in a blighted boyhood. (July)