Ten years ago, Emma Healey scored a huge critical and commercial success with her debut novel ‘Elizabeth Is Missing’, which went on to become a hit BBC drama. Healey’s latest however, is a let down. It concerns Cassie who works as a keep-fit instructor in a gym, a gym that is currently offering discounts to anyone who is disabled. To that end, a man comes in one day wanting to avail himself of the offer. That man is Liam and because of a benign brain tumour he has recently turned blind, which presents us with the narrative hook: Liam and Cassie once lived together. It was a terrible, toxic relationship and when Cassie finally left Liam he stalked her for months on end before she finally got shot of him. Now, a couple of years down the line, he’s back. Liam doesn’t know that Cassie works at the gym, and when she sees him coming in she’s shocked. However, she decides to hide her identity by disguising her voice. She then becomes his personal trainer. It’s a fairly ludicrous set-up but a good psychological thriller can withstand such liberties (see ‘Gone Girl’). This, however, isn’t a good psychological thriller. It’s fatally undermined by a severe lack of thrills, and it’s also hampered by the structure, which features extended flashbacks to Cassie and Liam’s past. These sections – which highlight Liam’s awful behaviour – are jeopardy free by dint of the fact that we already know that Cassie managed to “escape” from Liam. ‘Sweat’ is nearly 400 pages in length, but if you plotted a graph that featured all of its exciting bits then you’d be left with a line that was more or less straight. RM

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Hutchinson Heinemann