Gillian Bradshaw is one of my go-to authors when I need a comforting reread that I know I will enjoy again, such as when I am home with the flu like last week. This, along with Island of Ghosts and The Sand Reckoner, is one of my favorites by her. She usually writes historical fiction but this one is mildly futuristic sci fi. In it, young, gifted classical musician Val has been yanked in by the police because the British government wants tests run on her brain. You see, as a baby she was the recipient of a brain regeneration treatment which now has been found to cause dangerously erratic behavior in a few recipients, and there has been a bit of a media frenzy about it. She's been avoiding the tests, because she dreads what may happen to her musical ability if they try to fix things. Val finds herself consigned to a specialized, fancy brain study facility with a misogynistic and menacing doctor, her only ally a young post graduate assistant. But allies, enemies, gifts and hazards, sometimes they aren't what they appear. ( )