The Night Visitor

This moody, meticulously plotted suspense novel from Atkins (The Other Child) opens at a launch party held at London’s Hunterian Museum for history professor Olivia Sweetman, who’s celebrating the release of her scandalous new biography of one of Britain’s first female surgeons, Annabel Burley. The book is already a bestseller, so Olivia should be on top of the world; instead, she’s furious with her husband for some unspecified betrayal, anxious regarding an overcoat-clad figure lurking at the back of the room, and terrified that her research assistant, socially maladjusted sexagenarian Vivian Tester, will reveal “the truth” about what Olivia has done. Flash back two months. Chapters from Olivia’s perspective are interspersed with journal entries by Vivian, painting a detailed portrait of the women’s complicated relationship while chronicling the events precipitating and then succeeding Olivia’s launch night angst. Evocative writing heightens the sense of impending doom created by the tale’s structure, keenly rendered characters enrich Atkins’ exploration of the pettier aspects of human nature, and the book’s harrowing conclusion gratifies without feeling pat. [em]Agent: Judith Murray, Greene & Heaton (U.K.). (July) [/em]