And though the police do finally identify Greg as the claw-killer, capturing him (detailed, believable detection), it's Lorraine's maniacally vengeful father who'll put the Terror to rest. So it goes, with wildly various responses by the rape victims, until victim #6-over-protected teenager Lorraine Selsey-becomes the first Terror fatality after slipping out one night to go to a disco-dance. Victim #2, however, is not only raped but ripped (a claw-like attack). Rape victim #1 is schoolmistress Marcia Lowe-a 50-ish virgin and repressed lesbian who's remarkably un flustered by the bedroom assault (""A slight pain and then indescribable pleasure""). But, except for the fact that Greg is then obviously Possessed by something-or-other, the supernatural is never mentioned again-as Lofts quite impassively records the Terror's crimes, moving from one viewpoint to another: the victims the police on the case Anderson's wife Mary, who only very slowly begins to suspect that all is not right with Greg and Greg himself, rather cheerfully leading his double life as family man by day and masked Terror by night. after being miraculously revived from apparent death (a head injury) by his witchy, Caribbean-born mother-in-law. There is one occult touch here, tantalizingly understated: Greg Anderson, a nice young accountant/husband/father in the Suffolk village of Hillchester, secretly becomes the ""Hillchester Terror"".
Best known in America for historical novels with occult trimmings, Lofts is also a solid, flinty crime writer-and some of her readers may be surprised by the almost Ruth-Rendell-ish starkness of this rape/murder case history.
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