Disturbing Suspense Horror Crime Fiction Novel The Treatment By Mo Hayder

The Treatment is a grim, harrowing crime/horror fiction novel. Its British author, Mo Hayder, was a best-selling novelist in several countries of the world when her first book, The Birdman, was published first. In her second novel, The Treatment (which was a Sunday Times bestseller), she goes on with the previous book’s story, and we see the same characters again.



In an unusually hot day of the London summer, a strange and disturbing crime occurs. A family is held captive and brutally tormented for two endless days, and their little son is gone – only to be found dead two days later, due to dehydration, tied up in a nearby park. Policeman Jack Caffery and his boss, Dannielle, a brilliantly pictured lesbian (short chopped hair, men’s shirts and heavy boots, and an amazing sense of humour – a diesel dyke, as she refers to herself) find several suspects, amongst others, the child’s own father, and oddly nick-named men, and a young, seriously ill woman, Tracy: the latters are the members of a paedophile ring. An old case also comes to light – police archives hold a blurred photograph of a bleeding, screaming man and his tormented son, perhaps a fake picture, perhaps not, however, the circumstances of the two crimes are oddly similar. Caffery has his disquieting private affairs: he still suffers from the loss of his brother who disappeared as a child – a Polish paedophile, Ivan Penderecki killed him, but proof never was found against him. Now Penderecki lives near Caffery’s home, and the two of them spy on one another, Caffery with hatred, Penderecki with malice. One of the suspects, Tracy, says she knows something about the Polish and a young victim of his, exactly at the lost brother’s age… Caffery ’s relationship with his lover, a rape victim and survivor from Hayder’s previous suspense novel The Birdman, is rather strained. London’s artistic élite hails and celebrates the beautiful and free-minded Rebecca’s statues and workpieces, most of them are about sexual violence, pain, and humiliation. Rebecca visits their vernissages and parties and drinks more and more, thus Caffery turns more and more aggressive with her. Their bickering leads to violence – and let me tell you, from this time on I hate Caffery from the core of my being, for the way he treated the already abused woman. In the meanwhile, a strange figure haunts the surroundings of the first murder. He is lurking near a family who are about to leave for a longer holiday…

The author of The Treatment, Mo Hayder, a fragile blonde, has the most adventurous life herself. Running away from her highly professional and educated parents at the age of fifteen, she does know a lot about living dangerously. She also moved to Japan and worked as a hostess there, she witnessed that a beloved female friend was raped and badly hurt. She later studied – on her own – how to write screenplays, and found a publisher for her first book. She often writes about graphic violence against women, she says the suppressed rage against females in men always take her by surprise and makes her uneasy.

She has written eight books about the cases of Jack Caffery and the other, already known figures of The Birdman and The Treatment. Perhaps sooner or later Caffery will find a painful and horrendous death. I personally cannot wait to see that. He lost all his respect from me in The Treatment – which was the most disturbing and unnerving book I have ever read. Growing up with Stephen King’s works from my early childhood, it is saying something.