SUICIDE COURSE: A Novel of Suspense

Suspense, yes--but only in the sense that the reader doesn't know the true identity of truculent, sarcastic, wholly disagreeable mental patient (and near-suicide) David Green until the close. Since the author is Roy Brown, David is also a Britisher (20, we ultimately learn) moving through thoroughly British scenes --another deterrent to identification. And for quite a time, there's nothing solid to hold onto--just intimations that David has a brother, who may be a twin; that the two have a father, who may be a petty crook and scrounger. David cannily escapes from the hospital, behaves erratically in London, appears to have an illumination (its nature unknown), contacts a volunteer from the Samaritan Center (who voices some thoughts on David's erratic behavior), has another apparent try at suicide (whereupon his scrounging, petty-crook father, enters), and then turns out to be his bad, dominant twin brother Mark. . . who was responsible for David's death three years back and has been punishing himself ever since. Readable, if one is so impelled, but fictive through and through.