2 out of 4 stars
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The Dark Knight Of The Soul by Kelly Bristow is a psychological crime thriller. Jenny has been diagnosed as having PTSD after she was mugged and her car and purse were stolen. She takes time off work but instead of getting better, she becomes increasingly anxious as her husband becomes more and more demanding and abusive. Haunted by terrifying nightmares, she starts to fall apart and contemplates suicide.
Unfortunately, this is a book with an identity crisis. It appears to be unsure as to whether it is a psychological thriller or a psychology textbook. The content of the opening chapters is exceptional. Bristow’s description of the terror, confusion and helplessness experienced by Jenny, as her husband rages at her, are incredibly vivid. He puts her through harrowing mental torture while isolating her from her friends and family, so she has nobody to turn to. I could feel my own stomach clenching with tension and dread as I read.
Then the community health team arrived, and for me, the story started to go wrong. Ellie, the occupational therapist, sits down with Jenny and I suddenly find that rather then reading a thriller, I’m now reading an in-depth, textbook description of the role of an occupational therapist. This is followed by the biological impact of stress and a detailed description of the four pillars of healing (described as rooms). It’s all very technical and I’m sure would be fascinating in a self-help book, but in a thriller, it brings the action to a grinding halt and the tension is lost completely. We later have Freudian and Jungian dream interpretations, a technical overview of narcissism and a lecture on glands. In amongst all of this, there’s a serious crime being planned, but it sometimes feels rather incidental to the plot.
Moving on to structure and style, this book desperately needs an editor. It reads like a first draft as there are many typos, sometimes more than one on a single page. There is confusion over ‘there’, ‘their’ and ‘they’re’, ‘bear’ and ‘bare’, misapplied apostrophes and missing capitalisations. I could go on. There are also problems with the structure. Jenny will be examining a necklace and will then return a bracelet to the jewellery box. Her husband got rid of her car, yet Ellie knew that both Jenny and her husband were home because there were two cars on the drive. Jenny has absolutely no money, yet she buys two weighted therapy products to the tune of £200. The author also has a trick of framing statements as questions. Now some people do talk like that, “I’m making coffee?” but all of her characters do it, giving them all a similar voice.
To make this book better, I would suggest that the author do what all authors are asked to do at some point, which is to ‘kill your darlings’. Bristow is an occupational therapist and the list of psychology references at the end of the book is impressive. Therefore, I can see that the psychological angle is important to her. However, it doesn’t sit well in what should be a punchy crime thriller. So my advice is to ditch the psychology. Bristow is also a survivor of domestic violence and that is where the writing is really strong and totally gripping. There are two very good books in here, but they need untangling. Unfortunately, I can’t recommend this book, but the strength and emotion of the writing leads me to give it 2 out of 4 stars.
This book, as it stands, would appeal to people interested in the psychology of domestic abuse.
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The Dark Knight of the Soul
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