Imagine you’re out for a walk one weekend and see a young man swallow handful of pills and jump into the river. Without thinking – or perhaps even as a distraction from the torment of your failing marriage – you strip off your heavy coat and plunge into the river to save him. Much later, after the ambulance has driven him away and you’ve sloughed off the river’s mud in a hot bath, you realise you’ve got the young man’s coat and, more to the point, he’s got yours, with a set of spare house keys in the pocket, along with a bunch of letters bearing your name and address. So you hot-foot it to the hospital to do a swap.You’re surprised when the young man recognises you, not from your heroics at the river, but from your professional life as a clinical psychologist working with disturbed adolescents. When he gives his name, it all comes back: Danny Miller more than a decade on from the ten-year-old you assessed for his suitability to stand trial for murder. A year out of prison, he’s been given a new identity as a student in the city, but his evident vulnerability makes it difficult for you to just walk away. Given that you’re currently on sabbatical leave from your clinical work, which of the following lines of action would most readily come to mind?•tspeak to the ward staff (whom you know) about referring Danny to the mental health services•tcontact his probation officer (who also happens to be a personal friend)•tinvite him to visit you at home for “a chat”Full review http://annegoodwin.weebly.com/annecdo...
Barker's prose is beautifully bleak, breathing life into her setting and characters while maintaining a sense of oppression, as though her fictional England and its people haven't seen the sun for months but manage to hope that at any moment it might break through the clouds.A story of memories that we often allow to deceive us, buried trauma and the way it creates hidden pathologies, and our sometimes fatal attraction to darkness, Border Crossing showcases our ability and willingness to both manipulate others and allow ourselves to be manipulated—especially by our selves—and does so through the lens of extreme violence committed by children. Stitch this fabric together with threads of skepticism about modern culture and its quietly rabid tendency toward a media-driven mob mentality, the news media itself, our self-absorbed nature and inability to build truly lasting and meaningful relationships, and the sometimes tragic way we embrace the wrong people while overlooking and even ignoring the right ones, and you have one hell of a novel.The protagonist's self awareness is as refreshing as his subtle ability to plunge ahead despite interior warning bells is startling.My first taste of Pat Barker. I'll be reading more of her work.
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I very much enjoyed this book. Although short it was an intense read and 'unputdownable'. When Lauren and Tom are out walking they come across an apparent suicide. The boy, Danny, however is known to Tom from a past case, when Tom appeared as an expert witness at Danny's trial. As Tom and Danny reconnect the story explores Danny's past and Tom's current states of mind. It appears initially that Danny intends harm towards Tom, whom he blames at least partly for his conviction. Tension is ratcheted as people warn Tom off Danny, but events in Tom's own life and the events in the wider world intercept and Tom is able to carry on his life. The end of the story is not neatly tied up but sufficiently told so that readers can imagine where the characters go after. I love that the characters are still swirling about in my head after I've finished reading this. The mark of an enjoyable story.
—Alyson
3.5 In clear, concise and straightforward prose, Barker gives us another psychological novel, this time about a possible child killer. Was the ten year old convicted of killing an 80 yr. old woman, or was he in fact innocent. This is something psychiatrist Tom Seymour must ascertain, not once but twice. The suspense in this book was amazing and the subject matter so fascinating. What makes a psychopath or sociopath? I also like that the ending is not all spelled out and some of it is left to the reader's interpretation, though with plenty of clues. Actually downloaded this author's latest book, "Toby's Room" to my kindle.
—Diane S.✨
The novel is about a psychologist who, in the midst of his own divorce, meets up with a young man who he had evaluated and testified against years before. The disintegration of the marriage feels so real that it was painful to read. Shadowed in the background was recent death the main character's father and a recurring image from a dream: love is a rabbit running among tombstones.At the same time, he is dealing with this former quasi-patient. A corrosive personality who epitomizes the concept of an emotional vampire. I liked the Regeneration trilogy better; she does such a good job creating characters that I think the more sustained, longer novels play to her strengths, but this one was very good too.
—Karen
