Catch Me When I Fall, by Nicci French

Risking it all for a thrill: one woman's appetite for self-destruction

After drink-fuelled semi-orgies, where she risks brutal beatings, Holly wakes up from her stupor to find that she has had sex with some highly unsuitable partners. One of them breaks out of the confines of her alternative life and threatens her everyday one. But there's an intriguing sleight-of-hand. While the reader might be tempted metaphorically to shake Holly by the shoulders and suggest she get her act together, French makes such a comfortable distancing impossible by involving us in her increasingly nightmarish life. We're forced to lose our objectivity, and find ourselves taking on Holly's guilty actions as part of our own response to the book.

The "transference of guilt" theme was a speciality of Alfred Hitchcock, but nothing the director made could match the positive riot of guilt-transference that decorates this book. Holly's best friend/business partner Meg is ineluctably drawn into the chaos of her life, as are her husband and various other characters, including a sympathetic male, Stuart, who unwisely confides his problems with premature ejaculation to her. Finally, there's the guilt dumped on the reader, obliged to take the consequences of Holly's actions whether we want to or not. The novel, like so much of French's work, hardly makes for a comfortable read.

"Nicci French", of course, is the husband-and-wife team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French, and this book poses some intriguing gender-related questions about the duo's division of labour. There's a female protagonist, as ever, but initially the lack of balanced male figures is worrying. The preponderance of brutal or weak males suggests another French: Marilyn, and The Women's Room with its simple gender antithesis. But Nicci French is much too sophisticated a writer for that, and some of the males are shown to be victims as much as Holly. The couple rigorously avoid telling us who does what. And who cares when the results are as dextrous and edgy as this?