Mary Leader - Triad

After the cot-death of their son, Timmy, professional book reviewer and aspiring childrens author Branwen Ericcson and husband Alan, a Civil Engineer, move into a huge, rundown mansion overlooking Lake Michegan, the challenging of renovating the sprawling property at least providing a small distraction from the tragedy. The couple are still young, and Branwen is determined to become a mother. With Alan working away on the dam project for weeks at a time, and no great social skills, her only real company is provided by the versatile house-keeper Millie Kern and her faithful pooch, Lance. It isn't long before even they are looking at her a bit funny ....

Branwen's publishers reject 'her' Vault-standard, misspelled review of Dr. David Ruebens' Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Sex .... - a book she has never read, let alone written a critique of - and when she visits her friend at the library to query whether or not she'd borrowed a copy, her reception is frosty. The librarian assures her that she did loan it, very recently - she was even wearing the same dress.

There have been many such unexplained events of late. Branwen is losing several days to sleep and awakening to find the furniture rearranged or, in one bizarre instance, the recently decorated kitchen repainted a garish orange. And then there are the creepy voices ... But at least David's a little happier. Last night he returned home unexpectedly to find her sprawled on the bed in a sheer black negligee and insisting he call her 'Rhiannon' - she's never been exactly sexy during the entire relationship. Bit disappointing that, when he mentions it to her afterward, she clearly has no memory of the event! But the name - Rhiannon - rings some bells with her: it was the name of her "perfect" cousin, four years her senior, who died several years ago at the tender age of thirteen. Rhiannon was a very beautiful, very sadistic little bully with text-book psychopathic tendencies who seemingly twisted everyone around her little finger. People remarked how the pair looked alike, which made Rhiannon despise Branwen even more. Rhiannon died during a game of hide and seek - she squeezed herself into the old freezer in the cellar - after another of her twisted, animal torturing pranks. Before she went off to re-inter her dead kitten, Branwen slammed down the lid on her. The lock broke, and ......

And now, it seems, Rhiannon is back.

And Branwen has fallen pregnant.

But is Alan the father? And, perhaps the most disturbing question of all: is Branwen the mother?

Despite her Protestantism, Branwen pays an impromptu visit to a confessional box and, for a time, her troubles seem to be alleviated, but it's a false dawn and, after an attempt at hurling herself off a cliff, there's nothing for it but to consult kindly, eccentric psychiatrist Dr. Ambrose. Their revelatory therapy sessions - and the tragic consequences - take up the remainder of the novel.

It's the first time in ages i've managed to read a novel in one sitting (it's only 213 pages all in) and, for the most part, i thought it was a creepy, thoroughly suspenseful page-turner. The author is clearly widely read in Welsh folklore and the grimmest fairy tales and, although both The Exorcist and Rosemary's Baby are referenced on the cover, if Triad owes any debt it's to these and The Three Faces Of Eve (which Leander name-checks in the story along with Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde and creepy melodrama Gaslight). The tone is nasty-minded as opposed to gory and the ending has an Amicus feel which is usually a total bonus but somehow doesn't suit in this instance.