THICKER THAN WATER

Six months after his pregnant wife, Jo, is murdered, Dr. Sam Crawford returns to Wales and a fresh round of nightmares. Jo's twin sister, Debbie, is convinced Jo is trying to contact her; Sam hears Jo's voice whispering him a welcome home; her bedroom still smells of her new perfume; and a Dictaphone tape he's saved of Jo's last message turns into another message: ``Help me.'' Sam struggles to resume his group practice and some semblance of a normal life, but somebody won't leave him alone—somebody who glues his car locks shut, leaves magazines featuring photos of mothers and babies around his flat, and hires an actor to impersonate the (nonexistent) abandoned husband of Sam's hopeful new love Chloe Jesson. Is the killer schizophrenic Dorian Phipps, whose confession to Jo's murder nobody believed? Or is it Sam's malcontented partner Ned Whelan, who keeps losing the lab results of female patients so that they have to reschedule late evening appointments? Or is Jo alive after all? A teasing, shivery first novel that wastes not a word in making your hair stand on end. Small wonder it's already been made into a BBC miniseries to be shown on the Arts and Entertainment network.