Grant-Adamson, Lesley

(British 1942– )

Grant-Adamson's early novels featured Rain Morgan, a gossip columnist with a taste for detective work. Rain is a likeable character and the books in which she appears are very varied. Patterns in the Dust (1985), Grant-Adamson's enjoyable debut, was an early example of her ability to evoke setting— in this case, rural Somerset—while Curse the Darkness (1990) is notable for its portrayal of homelessness in contemporary London. More recently Grant-Adamson has abandoned Rain, preferring to experiment with diverse central characters, although the amoral Jim Rush features in two books. Flynn (1991) introduces a female private eye, while in Wish You Were Here (1996) and Evil Acts (1996) the emphasis is on psychological suspense, a branch of the genre at which Grant-Adamson excels.

Sarah Dunant, Ruth Rendell  ME