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Twilight
Peter James
Gollancz hardback, 288 pages, £14.99
Published October 1991
ISBN 0356200302
Review by David Clark (1991)

Kate Hemingway is an investigative journalist working for a local newspaper in Brighton. This doesn't seem likely, as my local paper doesn't investigate much, unless you count biased not-in-my-backyard angst about the siting of a new bail hostel. She's American, for some reason (is James seeking a film deal?), and doesn't seem to have any friends (I know I hate journalists). And she's all young and enthusiastic, which might be why she's so keen to sneak into the cemetery and hang around the morgue. Put like this, Twilight sounds like a Nancy Drew novel. Well trust me, it isn't as much fun. This is a very English thriller/crimer, with a dash of the supernatural – Harvey Swire is so tormented by his near death experience that he starts to inflict the same onto others in the hope of learning more. Cue out of body stuff.

Twilight reads like James is trying to write a clever book. There's a lot of detail, and there's nothing wrong with detail in its place. But I can't get into it. Twilight is a bit twee, a cosy crimer. Very English, in the same way Wimbledon Fortnight is. The sort of book a nice middle class old lady would buy from a nice local bookshop. One could almost describe it as a bit Mills & Boon, to be read in the comfy armchair with a digestive biscuit, with slippered feet up while the dog quietly farts. Too cosy by half. •

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