Suspicion (1997)

Suspicion, a flawed but highly digestible novel of fraternal betrayal, could never have been made in America. The gloomy, insular hamlet where the story unwraps; the repressed, set-in-his-ways narrator (a coroner named Julian Whyte); the matter-of-fact manner in which emotionally charged events are imparted — all are terribly English. Whyte's estranged Communist brother, Raymond, returns to the village with coldly gorgeous German wife in tow. Julian covets her, gets her, but can never really have her, not because of torturous feelings (though he's got those in spades) but because of her Berliner ex-lover, Walter Krokowski, an inconvenient and somewhat jarring arrival. London publishing bigwig Robert McCrum gives literate underpinnings to a trashy psychological thriller. Blood will spill, rest assured, but oh so decorously. B+