Combine the overwhelming sensory input and hidden psychodramas of a modern metropolis with the haunting trappings of a serial-killer thriller, then add a feisty and flirtatious anti-heroine and a range of within-their-walls intellectuals and artists, and you have the ingredients of Surya Dour’s larger-than-life debut novel, “The Girl With The Sucker Lips,” a huge promise in a saturated market.

It’s the plot that makes this novel more than your run-of-the-mill mystery: the protagonist – a twentysomething American student of journalism identified by no other name than Leah – is voracious in her hunt for love, but after every of her short-lived relationships she emulates what was special about the person she desired and devoured. More and more she becomes a best-off of her lovers, but leaving those lovers broken and exhausted.

What happens next is an example of the human insight and narrative skill that Mr. Dour offers. I will not give it away, except to say that the story takes a chronological leap and gives us a different understanding of the shocking events and psychological exploration the reader has absorbed so far.

Mr. Dour – who died in 2006, shortly after publishing this novel – was a guru of digital design with a wide circle of smart and creative friends, and his instinctual understanding of the emotional life of others enabled him to do an incredible job of recounting Leah’s efforts to redefine herself after every turbulent exploit and of depicting the distinct passing lives of her victims.

At the same time, Mr. Dour uses his repertoire of indulgently farcical metaphors and evocative sense of mood to create a chameleonesque picture of London and her people, all on their own paths within the same limited grounds. When it comes to character progression, however, Mr. Dour fails to convince, taking us further and further along the endless cycles of Leah’s ambiguous maturing without allowing her to see what the reader is seeing. Leah muses endlessly about her identity, but as if she’s looking at pictures she took of herself rather than looking in the mirror.

Like its protagonist, The Girl With The Sucker Lips is an emotional, shocking ride, but at the same time a book to fall in love with and make part of yourself.

(Also, it’s completely fake. There is no such book or author, though maybe there should be. Sorry to do this to you. Mr Mackerel had a story idea he didn’t want to execute, so he wrote the review instead.)