The Tryst
Authors: Michael Dibdin
The Tryst
Michael Dibdin
Vintage (1989)
Tags: Mystery
Mysteryttt
“One of my patients thinks somebody’s trying to kill him,” Aileen Macklin says to her husband over breakfast. A psychiatrist with a fading marriage, Aileen is haunted by the glue-sniffing lad who comes to her in a panic, begging to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for protection. Gary Dunn clearly needs help: ravaged by his squalid existence, he is paralyzed with fear about a murder he has witnessed and convinced he may be next. Unfortunately for Gary, he may just be right. And unfortunately for Aileen, she becomes far more involved in his case than professional ethics would recommend.
From Publishers Weekly
Aileen Macklin, at 35, is trapped in a joyless marriage, and her job as a psychiatrist in an underfunded social program in Thatcher's England offers few rewards; she is "absolutely certain that she is a person to whom nothing more would ever happen." That's as tantalizing a premonition of disaster as the author of a psychological suspense novel can offer, and Dibdin quickly makes good with a tightly coiled, coolly analytical depiction of two crumbling psyches. Into Aileen's life comes a tormented teenaged patient who reminds her of a lost love and carries a troubling burden of guilt. Once a squatter, he now seeks institutionalization and resists Aileen's every effort to uncover the facts causing his terror. This dense, compact mood piece includes stories within stories within flashbacks, preventing its structure from becoming clear until the closing moments. While an ambiguous ending may irritate some readers, the sense of creeping dread that pervades the narrative is sustained superbly throughout, distinguishing this work as both a haunting thriller and as a series of harshly lit snapshots of London's dispossessed.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Echoes of Alice in Wonderland creep eerily through this short novel that moves between urban British blight and psychiatric wings of old hospitals. While the reader awaits the big moment of the title, the tryst has already happened, with repercussions reverberating throughout the novel. The plot is the amateur detective type, with Aileen, the psychologist, as detective. Steven, the boy assigned to her, is at once victim, patient, conspirator, and Aileen's aborted child. The reader, however, knows far more than Aileen. One wonders about her skill as a psychologist, not to mention her sleuthing ability. Suspense is created by lapses of memory and comprehension and by role reversals. Despite the above-mentioned flaws and an awkward structure, the novel is engaging, especially its dialog and description.
- Nancy E. Zuwiyya, Binghamton City Sch. Dist., N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
The Tryst
Michael Dibdin
Vintage (1989)
Tags: Mystery
Mysteryttt
“One of my patients thinks somebody’s trying to kill him,” Aileen Macklin says to her husband over breakfast. A psychiatrist with a fading marriage, Aileen is haunted by the glue-sniffing lad who comes to her in a panic, begging to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for protection. Gary Dunn clearly needs help: ravaged by his squalid existence, he is paralyzed with fear about a murder he has witnessed and convinced he may be next. Unfortunately for Gary, he may just be right. And unfortunately for Aileen, she becomes far more involved in his case than professional ethics would recommend.
From Publishers Weekly
Aileen Macklin, at 35, is trapped in a joyless marriage, and her job as a psychiatrist in an underfunded social program in Thatcher's England offers few rewards; she is "absolutely certain that she is a person to whom nothing more would ever happen." That's as tantalizing a premonition of disaster as the author of a psychological suspense novel can offer, and Dibdin quickly makes good with a tightly coiled, coolly analytical depiction of two crumbling psyches. Into Aileen's life comes a tormented teenaged patient who reminds her of a lost love and carries a troubling burden of guilt. Once a squatter, he now seeks institutionalization and resists Aileen's every effort to uncover the facts causing his terror. This dense, compact mood piece includes stories within stories within flashbacks, preventing its structure from becoming clear until the closing moments. While an ambiguous ending may irritate some readers, the sense of creeping dread that pervades the narrative is sustained superbly throughout, distinguishing this work as both a haunting thriller and as a series of harshly lit snapshots of London's dispossessed.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Echoes of Alice in Wonderland creep eerily through this short novel that moves between urban British blight and psychiatric wings of old hospitals. While the reader awaits the big moment of the title, the tryst has already happened, with repercussions reverberating throughout the novel. The plot is the amateur detective type, with Aileen, the psychologist, as detective. Steven, the boy assigned to her, is at once victim, patient, conspirator, and Aileen's aborted child. The reader, however, knows far more than Aileen. One wonders about her skill as a psychologist, not to mention her sleuthing ability. Suspense is created by lapses of memory and comprehension and by role reversals. Despite the above-mentioned flaws and an awkward structure, the novel is engaging, especially its dialog and description.
- Nancy E. Zuwiyya, Binghamton City Sch. Dist., N.Y.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
MICHAEL DIBDIN
The Tryst
Michael Dibdin is the author of many novels, including the Aurelio Zen mysteries
And Then You Die, Dead Lagoon
, and
Ratking
, which won the Crime Writers Association Gold Dagger Award, and
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
. He lives in Seattle, Washington.
Books by
MICHAEL DIBDIN
And Then You Die
Thanksgiving
Blood Rain
A Long Finish
Così Fan Tutti
Dark Specter
Dead Lagoon
The Dying of the Light
Cabal
Vendetta
Dirty Tricks
The Tryst
Ratking
A Rich Full Death
The Last Sherlock Holmes Story
FIRST VINTAGE CRIME/BLACK LIZARD EDITION, JULY 2003
Copyright © 1989 by Michael Dibdin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American
Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Great Britain by Faber & Faber Ltd., London, in 1989. First published in hardcover in the United States by Summit Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, Inc., New York, in 1990.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Dibdin, Michael.
The tryst / Michael Dibdin.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82246-8
1. Psychotherapist and patient—Fiction. 2. London (England)—Fiction.
3. Married women—Fiction. 4. Witnesses—Fiction. I. Title.
PR6054.I26 T79 2003
823’.914—dc21 2002033159
Author photograph © Isolde Ohlbaum
v3.1
To my father and mother
Contents
Every crime has something of the dream about it. Crimes
determined
to take place engender all they need: victims, circumstances, pretexts, opportunities.
PAUL VALÉRY
1
‘One of my patients thinks somebody’s trying to kill him.’
She had meant to sound light and casual, but the words gushed out, breathless and urgent, betraying her feelings, her emotion, her involvement. It had been madness to mention the boy.
Or perhaps I’m imagining it, she thought. Perhaps he’s noticed nothing.
Her husband speared one of the rectangles into which he had previously divided his slice of quiche, dredged it thickly in mayonnaise and hoisted it into his mouth. After chewing conscientiously for a moment or two, he glanced over at his wife.
‘Isn’t that fairly … normal?’
It was a trap, of course. If she took him literally, he would claim that he’d been joking; if she treated it as an example of the pawky humour he was so proud of, he would ask pointedly what was funny about someone in fear of his life.
‘A normal delusion, you mean?’ Aileen asked as she refilled their glasses with wine.
Her husband paused judiciously.
‘Well, I take it that the person in question …’
