The Face That Must Die

This early novel of the author's is an exploration mainly of one character's delusions and homophobia, which lead him into murder. Given his hallucinations, which include the idea that the people on TV are watching him and the radio is either passing coded messages or listening to him, it is clear that his mental state is due to the illness known as paranoid schizophrenia. The general decay of the urban setting, and the claustrophobia of being trapped on a soul-less high rise housing estate, together with a dysfunctional upbringing - Horridge's drunken father was directly responsible for the accident which left Horridge with a lifelong problem with his leg - has tipped the character over the edge, as gradually becomes clear, and after show more reading about some well publicised murders, his delusions start to coallesce around the unfortunate inhabitants of an older house, some distance from the housing estate, which has been divided into flats.

Most of the novel is told from Horridge's point of view though the viewpoints of the various people he ends up stalking - and worse - are also utilised. Most of these are sympathetic characters which makes their fate all the more disturbing. There are some truly horrible images - a metal bird in particular - and, as usual with this author, the characters stumble into peril after mutual misunderstandings and failures to communicate over a slow but inexorable build-up.

The use of schizophrenia and its disordered thinking as the motive force for a serial killer made a good change from the usual ice cold sociopath. Possibly this was influenced by the author's own life, given the account in this edition - I read an abridged/edited version of the novel some years ago, but this restores the original text and a previously excised chapter, adding also a short story and an introduction where the author describes his dysfunctional upbringing to which he credits his ability to write disturbing fiction. That gave an interesting insight into not only this book, but others, such as Obsession which I read recently, where the mother of one of the characters disintegrates mentally due to a form of senile dementia. The only thing I wasn't keen on about the present book was the character of Peter, although I can see, especially from the introduction, that he is supposed to be an annoying drug besotted layabout, but for that reason I rate this as 4 stars. show less

One of the first slasher/serial killer novels, it must've seemed ghastly when it was first published, especially considering that the author introduction is a confessional of his childhood and his mother's growing dementia. Not my fave type of story, but for those into serial killer fiction, its a must-read. Oh, and since I;m a librarian, I should mention, two of the characters work in a British public library branch--but its depicted as weary, routine, dreadful, with annoying adults and children.