The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight

This author can always be relied upon for originality and fine writing, and any new work arouses the highest expectations. But in this novel she has lumbered herself with a plot so rigid and all-pervasive that it gobbles up energy that could otherwise have gone into characterisation or even the odd, welcome sub-plot. A disturbed teenager, writing in the first person, who decides to pass himself off as another family’s missing child is not a bad idea in itself, but in these pages the guilt, shame and fear he experiences is re-visited so often it ends up by becoming a bit of a bore. For readers hanging on to the end there is a good climax involving that trusty old figure from horror films, a Wicker Man. But the charm typical of Valentine’s earlier novels is replaced here by something heavier and more unwieldy, with few light passages to offset the general gloom plus a general straining for effect that ultimately becomes self-defeating.