Old Flames was published by Leisure Books in 1999. The setup is domestic rather than supernatural: Jim, a New York professional, returns to his apartment to find that his ex-wife Dora — beautiful, volatile, and pathologically possessive — has broken in, tied up his girlfriend Sara, and settled in to wait for him. The weekend that follows is a hostage situation conducted in the language of a relationship: Dora does not see herself as a criminal but as a lover reclaiming what is hers.
Ketchum’s treatment of the material is characteristically precise. Dora is not a cartoon psychopath but a woman whose possessiveness has crossed the line from dysfunction to pathology so gradually that she cannot see the line herself. The violence she inflicts on Sara is motivated not by sadism but by jealousy — which makes it worse, because jealousy is something every reader has felt, and the gap between feeling jealous and acting on it is narrower than anyone wants to admit.
The novel is short, fast, and confined almost entirely to the apartment — a single setting that Ketchum uses to create a sense of entrapment that mirrors the psychological dynamic. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, and no one coming to help.
Collecting Old Flames
First edition (Leisure Books, New York, 1999): Mass market paperback.
Market values:
- First edition, fine: $10–$25
- Very good: $5–$12