Alone in her huge London home, Elizabeth Skvorecky is putting her life back together after a bitter split from boyfriend Tom.

She shuts herself away from the world while she translates a trashy thriller from Czech into English.

Increasingly isolated, her only companions are her cat, Millie, her music and the policeman hero of the violent and sadistic novel she is working on. As autumn turns to winter and the dark nights draw in, odd things start happening.

The house she loves seems to take on a watchful, hostile life of its own. CDs go missing, objects move of their own volition and, one morning, Elizabeth comes down to find her breakfast table laid for two. She begins to question her sanity. Then one dark night she wakes to find a silent presence sitting in the shadows at the foot of her bed, watching her.

It is a truly terrifying moment in a psychological thriller that is dark, twisted and full of disturbing, rage-fuelled sex. Just when the book seems about to cross the border into out-and-out sadism, however, Elizabeth turns the tables on her stalker and strikes a blow for women everywhere.

This is a page-turner from beginning to end exploring the darker side of sex and fantasy and at the same time challenges the casual contempt for women hidden within the pages of many traditional thrillers. Unputdownable.

Updated: 09:06 Saturday, March 19, 2005