The Protagonists

THE GIRL
She was red-haired, beautiful and passionate, but she had the essential innocence and trust of the good, the born victim.
‘What’s your real name, Roy? Tell it to me so the baby at least may know who his mother should have married.’
HER LOVER
He lied to her, took her splendid body, used her shamelessly, until she became pregnant and refused an abortion.
‘I told her. She went very pale. She knew now that she had surrendered her everything to someone she didn’t know at all.’
THE DETECTIVE
To him this was more than a murder – it was a hideous, personal outrage.
‘First the girl and her baby,’ he thought. ‘Then her parents, her friends, all victims of the one act of destruction … He needed to kill girls to make him feel good.
Barlow tells this story from the point of view of the three principal characters. The analysis of the interplay of goodness and evil makes this a clever novel, inspiring pity, terror and a good deal of admiration for the Author's neat yet compelling style, never losing suspense along the way.