perfect place'' to write her first novel. Entitled `The Monkey Puzzle Tree', and praised by London's `Sunday Times' as "a chilling and involving read'', the book goes on sale here this week.

There have been glowing reviews in Canada as well as Britain for the novel which exposes one of the more shameful episodes in the American CIA's history of `dirty tricks'.

Admitting some surprise at the book's success, Ms Nickson says she has been interviewed on Canadian TV, with half-hour `phone-ins', and on British TV and radio. "I love British radio, so it was wonderful to be able to do that.'' Tellingly, her book has been rejected by American booksellers who told her that novels which place America in a bad light are not popular with their readers ."Americans,'' she comments, "like to see themselves as purveyors of good in the world. It's OK if it's an overseas scandal, but it if happens on their own turf they get very uncomfortable.'' This particular scandal began back in the 1950s, when the CIA instituted a series of experimental psychiatric programmes designed to combat what they saw as the world-wide threat of creeping communist domination.

For over a decade, Americans, without their knowledge, were subjected to experiments in mind control in a programme that cost millions of dollars. Even more shockingly, the most extreme programmes were reserved for a group of people more safely situated, from the nervous American point of view, over the border in Canada. World-renowned psychiatrist, Dr. Ewen Cameron, a Scots-born American citizen, conducted some of the worst of these de-humanising experiments at the Allan Memorial Institute, one of Montreal's most prestigious teaching hospitals.

Performed on people who had voluntarily admitted themselves for relatively minor disorders, the experiments included constant exposure to mind-altering drugs such as LSD, electroshock treatments and long periods in the infamous Isolation Chamber.

Outraged by the experiments and particularly that the US had invaded Canadian sovereignty -- without, apparently, a whimper of protest from Canada -- a group of Cameron's patients eventually launched, in 1979, a public interest case against the CIA.

Elizabeth Nickson's mother was one of Dr. Cameron's patients.

"But my family's story in all of this was comparatively small. My mother escaped the worst of the experiments because she was there the year before and the year after Cameron was working for the CIA. But I realise now that what happened to her has obviously affected my family. It's such a dark subject that I thought it would be easier to fictionalise it.'' Ms Nickson, former European bureau chief for `Time' and `Life' magazines says the natural beauty and nurturing atmosphere of Bermuda -- her home now for two-and-a-half years -- enabled her to cope with the trauma of writing what she calls "the loony bin scenes''. Bermuda, she says, saved her from feeling "swamped'' by the depression induced by writing such a personal and chilling story.

"If I'd written it in London, the whole thing would have worn me down, but here, there's a nice balance of writing, then taking a ride on my bike, or shopping around. There's a gentler pace here, which was good for the sort of work I was doing.'' Her novel, she says, is a book that had to be written. Ironically, it was her high-powered job with Time/Life that eventually led her to this realisation.

"In my last year I found myself concentrating mainly on stories on people who had been victims of torture and imprisonment. In very quick succession, I interviewed Nelson Mandela in his back garden, shortly after his release, then the Kuwaiti torture victims from the Gulf War and then, Billy Powers, one of the `Birmingham Six'. I found their stories were really upsetting me and I was becoming very sick, depressed and low in energy. I didn't realise at the time what was going on, but it was those experiences as a journalist that forced and aroused me to look at the effect of my mother's experiences at the Allan.'' Having come face to face with people who had suffered pain and indignity, Ms Nickson says she found it easier to realise the similarities between them and what had happened in her own family.

"It gradually became clear to me that my mother, who was a normal, middle-class housewife had actually experienced a very dramatic life.'' Appalled that few people outside Canada -- or, indeed, inside -- were aware of the scandal for which, to this day, there has never been a formal apology from either the US or Canadian governments, Ms Nickson embarked on what became a two-year project.

Emphasising that the end result is a work of fiction, she states in the preface to the book: "It would be misleading if I did not say that the bones of this story shaped the emotional climate of my childhood and its `true-life' aspects certainly determined what I became.'' Her mother's treatment for postnatal depression was, she explains, one of "bludgeon blows to the psyche. I met Ewen Cameron and he was a subtle and constant, and, I believe, malignant influence on my family life until he died.'' Noting that most of the patients who sued were aged and exhausted by their battle, Ms Nickson felt that the creation of Victoria Ramsey -- young, beautiful and clever -- would bring home to the general reader, the tragic implications of those experiments.

She admits the process of writing the story, even in fictionalised form, has been helpful, referring to "that creepy old therapeutic saw -- if you look at the pain of the past you do feel better afterwards!'' Now embarked on her next book, an historical novel, Ms Nickson says that while Bermuda is a good place in which to write, the same cannot be said for the research phase.

"There is not an adequate library in Bermuda. The librarians have been very helpful, but there is nothing within the normal canon of western literature here. This means I now have to go off to do ten weeks of research.'' Asked whether she misses the world of journalism, she replies: "I think about it now and then. But it's impossible to do journalism from a place like Bermuda! You're right out of the loop. How could you spot a story from here?'' She concludes with the observation that in Bermuda, "The sum of human happiness is very high compared with everywhere else I have ever worked. But you get the best stories from pain, suffering, grief and war. In Bermuda, you are insulated from what is happening in the miserable sections of the world.'' `The Monkey Puzzle Tree' is published by the Bloomsbury Press. Ms Nickson will hold a book-signing at The Bookmart on Friday, July 28, from 12.30 and 2 p.m.