The high flyer (by Susan Howatch)

(Amazon UK link)

'The High Flyer' is a novel by Susan Howatch, and is the second one in the 'St Benet's' series, which follows on from her Starbridge series.

This book mainly focuses on Carter Graham, a lawyer who works at a very high level in a top company in London. She's ambitious, intelligent and wealthy; she also appears to be highly organised and disciplined, and has spent the last few years following what she calls her 'life plan'. This, she thinks, will ensure that she succeeds in all possible fields - career, marriage and motherhood.

Carter is in her thirties, and recently married to Kim Betz - fitting in with her plan - who is another high flying lawyer. As the book opens, she has just discovered that her new temporary secretary is a man called Eric Tucker. Carter is annoyed at first, because she dislikes working closely with men; she worries that they might become flirtatious. However this young man behaves impeccably, so she agrees reluctantly to keep him for the two weeks while her regular secretary is away.

Unusually for Susan Howatch, this book is all written from Carter's perspective. It was clear to me from the start that while she is a supremely confident lady, there are bound to be flaws in her life-plan: life, after all, generally doesn't work out exactly as expected. And sure enough, that's what the book is about. Carter and Kim discover increasingly that they have significant differences in their expectations; worse than that, Carter starts to realise that Kim has hidden a lot of his past from her, and has even told her some lies.

There's a lot more suspense in this book than I normally like. The first time I read it, a couple of years ago, I found it almost impossible to put down. It was clear that either Kim or Carter had far more serious problems than were apparent to either of them, but for a while I wasn't sure which one was in danger. Gradually I could see the direction the book was going: one of them spends time with a rather seedy occult society, the other starts taking advice from some chance-met Christians connected with St Benet's healing centre.

Despite being part of a series, this book can be read as a stand-alone novel. As I had read the previous book 'A Question of Integrity', I knew that I could trust at least some of the St Benet's staff. I also liked seeing glimpses of people who had been major characters in that book. But still I wasn't sure what the outcome would be, and there are some shocking moments - no unnecessary gore, but events which I certainly wasn't expecting. When I read the book again recently, I did remember the main plots so there were no more shocks, but I still found it gripping.

The Christian side of the book is fairly low-key. The book talks about wholeness and integrated lifestyles rather than repentance or salvation. I found it an interesting insight into the dangers of ambition and high-flying business-people too; it was very thought-provoking towards the end.

Although I love Susan Howatch's writing, with a fast-paced style and people I can relate to strongly, I found it a bit over-suspenseful, and there was a little more bad language than I like. In discussing the book with other people, I learned that some readers object not so much to the conventional swearing, but to some unusual words coined by Carter: for instance she talks about 'nutterguff' (nonsense), or 'fluffettes' (roughly equivalent to 'dumb blondes'). I personally found this rather endearing, almost children's words used by this high flyer who was so totally in control of her work-life, but if that kind of thing annoys you, you may not want to read this.

With that one caveat, though, I would recommend this to anyone who likes suspenseful and well-written novels. There's no horror, no gore or detailed violence, but it's an exciting book with a great deal of tension. I'd also recommend it to anyone who likes books with good characters as well as plot.