THE ONLY CHILD

RELEASED OUT NOW! 304 pages | Paperback/ebook

Author andrew Pyper

Publisher Orion The stories of Frankenstein, Dracula, and Dr Jekyll And Mr Hyde are well-worn now, as familiar as fairy tales. But what if they weren’t just stories? That’s the horrible idea forensic psychiatrist Lily Dominick is asked to accept in Andrew Pyper’s latest, when a patient admitted to her care claims to be a 200-year-old monster who inspired each of those books.

Rather than dismissing his tale as the ranting of a maniac, Lily finds herself drawn in by “Michael”. And when he tells her he knows all her family’s secrets, she’s so desperate to learn the truth that she’s even prepared to drop everything and follow him around the world, from New York to Budapest and then London. Is he the real deal? Or does Lily need her own psychiatrist?

It’s obvious Pyper loves the gothic literature he’s referencing, but he doesn’t manage to contribute anything new to the genre here. Lily should be an interesting heroine, but she forgets her personality within the first few chapters, becoming a kind of peg for the story to hang off rather than a character. And Michael isn’t much better: he’s just a generic baddie whose dry diary entries are practically Mary Shelley fanfic. Chuck in some dubious incesty vibes and a bit of dodgy geographical research and you’ve just got, well, a mess, really, and one that doesn’t even have the good grace to have fun with its monster mashup.