Prized possessions

In this masterpiece of psychological suspense (second only, perhaps, to Wright's Edgar-winning The Suspect), the real villain is self-delusion; it inflicts more damage than even the craziest serial killer. In the case of Emma O'Brea, the delusions concern her marriage: When her husband Charlie disappears it quickly becomes apparent that Emma was the only person in Canada who didn't recognize how desperate he had been to leave. And then there's Eddie Addison, an overgrown delivery boy, far from the sharpest knife in the drawer, and dangerously obsessed with a pretty young student. Eddie and Emma would seem to have little in common, but when Inspector Karl Alberg is called in to solve the riddle of Charlie's vanishing act, the two sets of disturbing delusions begin to converge, with a climax that even the canniest reader is unlikely to see coming.