‘Secrets Only Sleep’ by Barbara Fagan Speake

Independently Published,
2005.
ISBN: 1-901214-41-9

The two leading characters in this mystery leap from the pages as fully fledged people with real problems and pleasures.  Michael Turner is an ex-cop with a thriving security business in Westford, Connecticut who sees the body of a murdered bag lady and feels that he recognises her although he is unable to remember who she was or where he had met her.  In England Dr. Christine James is mourning the unexpected death of her husband.  She returns to her native America for a family visit, and through her meeting with Michael, who is a friend of her sister’s, he is enabled to track down the elusive memory of the murder victim’s identity. From here on the two are increasingly involved  in the murder investigation.

Barbara Speake has presumably used her own experience as an American Clinical Psychologist working in the UK to add verisimilitude to the book.  The English American differences are dealt with lightly - I sympathised with Christine’s preference for crisp US bacon!  The insights into abnormal psychological attitudes are excellent and highly convincing to the reader.  The New England surroundings are well conveyed as is the contrast with the surroundings that Christine remembers from her childhood.  This is a first book in which the author successfully sweeps her reader along in the developing tale of love and obsession.
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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer

Barbara Fagan Speake was born and brought up in Connecticut, on the eastern seaboard of the USA. She moved to the UK in 1972 following her marriage and had a varied career as a research psychologist, clinical psychologist and senior manager in the NHS. A previous author of non-fiction books, she turned her attention to fiction writing in 2001. Barbara creates her characters from both the US and the UK and draws on her experiences of both countries as well as on her professional background. A fictional city in Connecticut, Westford, was the setting for her standalone debut novel, Secrets Only Sleep (2005). She continued to use the setting for the novels in her Scottish Detective and has now written seven further books in the series featuring Detective Annie Macpherson.

www.barbarafaganspeake.com