The Body

A housewife’s paranoid fears are stoked by a series of inexplicable near-fatal assaults in this uneven domestic dark fantasy from Morrow (So Many Beginnings). Mavis Dwyer is seven years into a fulfilling marriage that has rescued her from the psychological oppression of her belittling ex-lover, disapproving parents, and the church she was raised in. Then her life begins to unravel. In quick succession, she is nearly killed in a car accident, barely escapes injury when an employee at a hardware store goes on a violent rampage, and fends off attackers during a home invasion. When she discovers that the perpetrators were all attendees at her wedding, and that none remembers their violent turn, Mavis is forced to consider that some malevolent influence is turning her acquaintances and loved ones against her. Morrow ultimately provides a novel explanation for Mavis’s travails, but the winding path there occasionally frustrates. The narrative delves deep into Mavis’s neurotic mind, which is often more flighty and distracting than it is illuminating. Still, patient readers will be rewarded with an eerie payoff. Agent: Victoria Marini, Volume Five. (Feb.)