Interviewing people in police custody is part of Dr. Kit Quinn’s job. But when Michael Doll, a disturbed derelict caught hanging around a London schoolyard, breaks a mug and tears up her face during questioning, he also cracks her composure and self-confidence. The incident leaves her with recurring dreams of a red room, where nightmares become real.…Three months later, Kit is again called upon to talk to Michael Doll after the police pick him up for the murder of a teenage runaway. Her colleagues in the department think that involving Kit in the case might help her recovery and put Doll behind bars for good. It doesn’t do either. For Kit believes Doll didn’t do it, and he walks free.
Touched by the fate of the homeless girl, Kit becomes involved in a dangerous, deadly inquiry. But when she links the teenager’s murder to the high-profile case of a pretty blond housewife, abducted in broad daylight and killed, the main figure in the middle of it all is…Michael Doll. As her investigation continues, Kit finds him always in the shadows. Outside her doorway. Inside her apartment. Calling her on the phone. Wanting to love her. Yet, even with her fear escalating, Kit has the gut feeling that Doll isn’t a killer. Even more frightening is her suspicion about who is…
In her previous books, Nicci French claimed the territory of violent obsession as her own. Here she explores the geography of the twisted psyche even more deeply, breaking new ground as she opens up the dark places in the human mind…and reveals the red room, a place of nightmares, inside us all.
