Consent by Leo Benedictus

A pacy and chilling thriller about our voyeuristic obsessions

Consent is the second novel, following Afterparty (2011), from writer and journalist Leo Benedictus. The hardback version is published with minimal cover art with the perennially inquisitive question 'read me' on the back which creates real standout in bookstores.

The novel takes some time to get into but there is a brilliant moment when you realise that this is the work of a stalker leaving notes about his methods, botched attempts and above all his motivations. As the result of a substantial inheritance from a rich Aunt he is able to fund a lifestyle of monitoring and surveillance. Inevitably this results in black humour but more often the narrative strays into the deeply creepy.

Like American Psycho (1991), Consent draws the reader in to the mind of a psychopath but unlike Bret Easton Ellis best work Benedictus also introduces a third person narrative concerning Frances, the un-named stalker's latest obsession. On the one hand we observe the stalker planning his surveillance whilst at the same time experiencing the life of the subject, Frances from an alternative perspective.

Consent is a pacy and chilling thriller about our voyeuristic obsession with other people. The narrative structure pays off in the end and is summed up perfectly by Leo Benedictus in his online commentary about boring novels; 'Why should the experience of reading a novel correspond as closely as possible to the experience of living life? You don't build a sandcastle to make it look like the beach'

Consent by Leo Benedictus published by Faber, 240 pages

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