Pg. 99: Carol Anne Davis's "Sob Story"

The current feature at the Page 99 Test: Carol Anne Davis's Sob Story.

About the book, from the author's website:

Men behind bars can make excellent letter writers for female pen pals. Occasionally these relationships continue successfully when the inmate is released, but more often the woman ends the relationship when the man is due for parole as she wants the romantic ideal of a relationship without the day to day reality.

Sob Story examines what happens when Amy, a shy student who has just started a course at the University of Dundee, starts to correspond with Jeff, an inmate at Maidstone Prison. They’re both trapped by circumstances but have very different ways of dealing with this. Amy tries to control her world by restricting what she eats and by exercising excessively. Jeff’s solution is to indulge his strangling fetish and ultimately kill. Released on parole, he immediately travels to Dundee to surprise his innocent but naïve penpal - and suddenly she, and every other woman who crosses his path, is in jeopardy...

Among the praise for Sob Story:

"Davis doesn’t pull any punches and weaves a convincing tale that is frighteningly believable. Anyone who likes dark psychological thrillers should check out her work – this is an author I definitely want to see more from."
--Sandra Ruttan, Spinetingler

"Anyone familiar with the author's true crime accounts and other novels will know they are informed by the pathology underpinning extreme violence and Sob Story is no exception.... The book is also a subtle exploration of the psychology of women who enter into contact with men behind bars, the loneliness – which Davis brilliantly evokes – and emotional immaturity driving them, the self-deceptions required to maintain these relationships despite all good advice. An intelligent and exciting read, Sob Story will have you hooked. White knuckle stuff."
--Jack Lawrence, Forum magazine website

Read more about Sob Story at Carol Anne Davis's website.

Davis is the author of four true crime books and five realistic crime novels. She is a regular contributor to In Cold Blog.

Ian Rankin has said of her work: "Carol Anne Davis writes with dangerous authority about the deadly everyday. Her work is dark in ways that Ruth Rendell and Minette Walters can only dream of. This is our world, skewed and skewered, revealed in its true sanguinary colours. You've got to read her."

The Page 99 Test: Sob Story.

--Marshal Zeringue