Mo Hayder: The Treatment

By MICHELE HEWITSON

Hayder's last book was Birdman, a thriller which had the rare power to really shock: it was a very creepy little story about a necrophiliac.

There was also the added shock horror value that the writer was a woman whose fictional female victims were mutilated, tortured and raped.

There's a whole thesis there (it has probably already been written) about the many ways in which many young women thriller writers seem determined to delve unflinchingly deeper into descriptions of sexual sadism than their male counterparts.

The Treatment is a sequel, of sorts. Flawed hero Jack Caffery is back, as is the woman he saved, but only just, from the attentions of Birdman's psychopath.

She is an artist, whose obsession is making plaster casts of female genitalia.

A couple are found, bound, in their home. Their young son is missing. A dog has been sexually molested.

Hayder can spin a yarn, she's paid attention to forensic detail, but, like Birdman, this one's so determined to linger on the ghastly details that you're left feeling sick - and horribly manipulated - by the cynical attempt at moral redemption.

If this book was written by a man you would have reason to really worry about a deep-seated hatred of women.

That it's written by a woman makes it even more suspect.

Random House

$34.95