David Staniforth

This is a real departure from David Staniforth's usual genre of Fantasy.  It's dark, tense and there's a creeping sense of the sinister while the reader sides with an inept young man.

Imperfect Strangers

Amazon.com Imperfect Strangers

My review - 

Keith is a gauche and socially inept young man who works as a night security guard and is generally held in contempt by the rest of the company’s employees. He is attracted to Sally, a fellow worker there, but she isn’t interested in him and is in the process of falling out with her previously live-in man. Keith tries so hard, reading books on body-language to help him to empathise with others. His late mother’s influence on his upbringing is still strong. In hoping to attract Sally he is trying to rid himself of those memories.

This is an amazing story and it’s hard not to cheer Keith on. It’s written from both his and Sally’s points of view and we see gradually how their ideas on the progress of this relationship diverge. Its ending is extremely tense and exciting. This is a total change from the author’s previous genre of Fantasy and it proved that he is more than capable in a variety of genres.