WHEN I CLOSE MY EYES

By Jemma Wayne

(Legend Press €12.55)

WAYNE, previously nominated for the Women’s Prize for Fiction, returns with this knotty psychodrama about a troubled Hollywood screenwriter haunted by her upbringing in small-town England.

Lilith is living the high life in Los Angeles when an old boyfriend from her teens turns up out of the blue to up-end her hard-won equilibrium by sparking memories of suppressed trauma.

Told in percussive, thrillerish style, the novel’s tantalising glimpses of Lilith’s back story leave us wondering why she can’t sleep unless she’s alone with her bedroom door firmly locked.

Wayne generates tension, for sure, but the reader can’t help feeling unfairly toyed with along the way, and the helter-skelter events by which the story hurtles to a climax, involving memory loss and a missing child, risk looking over-egged when eyed too closely.

Yet despite the odd duff moment, this uneven narrative ultimately holds sway as a chillingly pungent portrait of predatory mind games.