Sauce bottle mystery

Press, 22 July 1989, Page 23

Sauce bottle mystery

On the Edge. By Peter Lovesey. Century, 1989, 204 pp. $29.95. “On the Edge” is reminiscent of Agatha Christie’s books, all plot and very little else. The main characters are two women, ex-WAAFs who meet again by chance in post-war London. "One of them, Antonia, is a rich, spoiled, svelte, viciously psychopathic murderer. The other is Rose, humdrum, drab and disappointingly married. She, to use a phrase of the times, is led astray. Map plotters during war-time, they now plot in a different way, beginning with Antonia ridding Rose of her turbulent husband by pushing him under a tube train. This is a simple start to a series of

events that become more twisted than Rastafarian dreadlocks and just about as prepossessing. It is a plot which does compel in spite of its unbelievability. Antonia never does put any flesh on to her psychopathic bones, but Rose discovers that she is not quite the shrinking violet that she thought herself to be when it comes to fighting for her life. “On the Edge” is readable and although well enough written, seems like the sort of crime novel that could be read on the back of a gigantic sauce bottle. It is a novel and it can be. read, but only to keep the eyes and the brain ticking over. — Ken Strongman.