Possession - Peter James

I had heard of Peter James, obviously.  He is one of the established stars of British crime fiction.  Had I read any?  I'm not sure.  I certainly watched the TV adaptation of his Roy Grace series but didn't much like it.  I am usually a fan of John Simms but in this case he didn't quite hit the mark as I recall.  I remember that his Achilles Heel, his fatal flaw so far as the police force was concerned, was faith in psychics.

Anyway I bought Possession on the off-chance, wondering if perhaps it had been wrongly listed under Horror and Supernatural.  But no, it's a standalone supernatural thriller from 1988, quite early in James's writing career - and, as the title suggests, it's all about possession.

Cambridge student Fabian Hightower has died in a car crash in Europe.  His mother Alex is devastated.  He was her only child.  She is a literary agent in London, her estranged husband David is establishing a vineyard in the countryside.  One of Alex's friends suggest she might want to consult a psychic and eventually Alex finds the dapper Morgan Ford.  He suggests holding a series of 'circles' in Fabian's room, to help his spirit move on.

No surprises that from that point on, things go to hell in the proverbial handcart.

The thing is, James makes a tremendous success of the story.  He clearly has unconventional views about the psychic world.  His medium, Ford, is convincing, the apparitions and apports all too real.  Yet he also knows and presents the arguments against.  David Hightower is a flat-out skeptic, whereas Philip Main, Alex's client, a writer of popular science books, helped his father as a fraudulent psychic but can't entirely dismiss the idea of some sort of basis for an afterlife.  Main and Ford agree on one thing which is key to the plot: These things can sometimes be genetic.

There are secrets and twists good enough for any crime thriller and the denouement is a finale with supernatural bells on.  Even so, James leaves some of the key issues open to interpretation.  No wonder he is such a success.  This is absolutely how these things should be done.  Possession is on a par with Stephen King.