Jonathan Kellerman — Self-Defence

Time Warner 1995 Paperback, 504pp. Dr Alex Delaware doesn't see many private patients any more, but for a young woman called Lucy Lowell he's prepared to make an exception. Referred to him by the police detective Milo Sturgis, Lucy had been a juror at the harrowing trial of a serial killer, and having survived that emotional trauma is now being subjected to further emotional stress: a recurrent nightmare of a young child in a forest at night, watching something as furtive as it is disturbing. Now Lucy's dream is starting to disrupt her waking life, and Alex believes the power of the dream and its grip on her emotions may be a repressed childhood memory of something very real. Something like murder. With its haunting images and riveting pace, this is superb entertainment from today's most darkly imaginative, consistently surprising author of psychological suspense. (ISBN: 9780751512182). Good.