Synopses & Reviews
The novel that started Michael Dibdin's career,
The Tryst, is an eerie psychological thriller in which a woman's buffed past lures her deeper and deeper into the Dickensian underbelly of 1980s London.
A psychiatrist with a fading marriage, Aileen Macklin is haunted by a young man who comes to her in a panic, begging to be admitted to a psychiatric hospital for protection. Gary Dunn is ravaged by his squalid existence, paralyzed with fear about a murder he has witnessed, and convinced he may be next. Unfortunately for Gary, he just may be right. And unfortunately for Aileen, she becomes far more involved in his case than professional ethics would recommend.
Review
"Stunningly handled narrative....Unnerving as rustling sheets in an unoccupied bed." The Guardian
Review
"Brings to the sudden-death genre a subtle humanism and to the mainstream novel a vivid and dramatic narrative gift." Sunday Times [London]
Review
"An extraordinary performance, absorbing, tantalizing, concretely realized, often funny, more often genuinely menacing." The Times (London)
Review
"Stunning originality, a true gift for drawing remarkable characters, and a real feeling for historical evocation." Ruth Rendell
Review
"[A] searingly unusual novel." The Observer
Synopsis
“One of my patients thinks somebodys 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.
About the Author
Michael Dibdin was born in England and moved extensively around the British Isles until his parents reluctantly agreed to his ultimatum, aged seven, that he for one intended to stay put in Northern Ireland, where they were then living. He later spent five years in Canada, working as a painting contractor, and another five in Perugia, Italy, where he taught English at the local university. In 1995 he officially achieved the status which has defined his entire life, that of Resident Alien, and now lives with his wife, the writer Kathrine Beck, and a varying selection of their five children in two turn-of-the-century houses in Seattle, Washington. Dibdin has written thirteen novels, eight of them in the popular Aurelio Zen series, including Ratking, which won the Crime Writers’ Association Gold Dagger, and Cabal, which was awarded the French Grand Prix du Roman Policier. His work has been translated into eighteen languages.