January 1964
Private detective Scarlett is preoccupied with a newspaper article about the murder of several street girls and another who is missing.
He ponders…
Who killed these girls?
What has become of the missing Dolores Chapman?
His thoughts are interrupted when a man visits his office and says that he recently glimpsed a child in a crowded country market that he believes to be his ‘dead’ son.
Was a healthy baby swapped at birth five years ago? Or is it just a coincidence that the boy looked like the father did when he was younger?
Scarlett will investigate…
REVIEW
When was the last time you read a novel in one sitting?
Well, it happened to me the other night at about page 8 of Liam Hennesce’s crime thriller, Haunted By the Past. I couldn’t put it down until I’d turned the last page, closed the book and then checked all the windows were securely locked before getting into bed. It was 2.30am.
Haunted By the Past is a modern horror story with an intriguing premise. Mark Coveton, a successful businessman knocks on the office door of private detective Scarlett and asks for his help in finding his son, Douglas, who he believes is still alive, even though he and his wife were told the boy, a fraternal twin, died in hospital of a respiratory illness soon after birth. His twin sister, Esther, survived and is a healthy five-year-old but Coveton’s nagging doubts about his infant son’s death are rekindled after he sees a small boy at a Dorking market who, he tells Scarlett, ‘looked just like I did at that age’. Coveton believes someone at the hospital swapped his infant son, Douglas, for a dead baby and that the boy he’s seen at the market – although fleetingly – is his son. He asks Scarlett to please find the boy or ‘prove to me that I am wrong’.
Readers who are familiar with Liam Hennesce’s earlier novel, The Boy Who Disappeared, won’t be surprised at the roller coaster ride they’ve just climbed onto, or the careening swerves the story takes as Scarlett tracks down parents of twins born at the same hospital, and on the same night, as the Coveton twins. His investigations lead him into a twisted world of prostitution, kidnappings and murder that give a nod to the most sensational crime/kidnap stories splashed across British newspapers in recent history – think serial killers Fred and Rosemary West; the kidnapping of Madeleine McCann; and Peter Sutcliffe,
aka the Yorkshire Ripper.
Haunted By the Past is also incredibly filmic, with a surprise ending that is so totally unexpected it will have you re-visiting sections of the book to find clues to the real circumstances surrounding the birth of the Coveton twins.
Haunted By the Past – Brilliantly written. Chills, thrills and great fun.
Not sure why Hollywood hasn’t yet come calling, but Stephen King – eat your Heart out.
Review by Loretta Monaco
