Out of the past

Events from the past returning to haunt the present is certainly a familiar theme in fiction, and British writer Andrew Taylor runs it into the ground in his 2006 novel A Stain on the Silence.

James, a happily married, moderately happy man, knows he's in trouble when he gets a call from a woman who calls him Jamie. The only person who has ever called him Jamie is Lily Murthington, the stepmother of Carlo, his best friend during his teenage years. A British version of Mrs. Robinson, Lily had seduced James during his visits to the Murthington home.

Now dying, Lily summons James to her bedside to tell him his daughter needs his help. James didn't know he had a daughter. Kate, now pregnant herself, is in hiding, both from the police, whom she fears may suspect her of killing her boyfriend, and from Carlo, whom she fears wants to kill her.

Meanwhile, his wife leaves him, suspecting Kate of being his young lover. James considers the truth — and Lily and Kate are only part of it — even more damaging than the suspicion of an affair. Yet, as in most TV situation comedies, the truth would actually be the quickest way to resolve the problems. The lies and the deceits about both what happened in the past and what is happening in the present multiply until Taylor manages to get everything royally confused, at least in the reader's mind.

I wanted to like A Stain on the Silence, and sometimes I did, but over all it proves a disappointment.