"In the end we are faced with a mystery to which there is yet no solution. Indeed, if one were seeking proof of the existence of evil - and this is not a search I have ever undertaken, nor wish to believe in - then one need look no further than these monsters who by rights should not exist outside the realm of our nightmares."
-The Blood-Dimmed Tide
First off, I think I should note that The Blood-Dimmed Tide is a sequel, and I have not read its predecessor, The River of Darkness. I suppose this colors my perception of the book, especially in the development of its characters. That being said, I had no difficulty following the plot - there are numerous references to the previous case, but they are all pretty self-explanatory.
The Blood-Dimmed Tide is set in England, 1932. Ramifications from World War I are still apparent, and there is growing concern about the political situation in Germany. John Madden, a former inspector for the Scotland Yard, is living a quiet life in the countryside with his wife and two children. That life is disrupted, however, when a young girl goes missing. Madden can't help but follow his instincts and, despite his wife's fervent opposition, becomes involved in the ensuing investigation. Although he is never officially on the case - we follow police developments through Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair, a former colleague of Madden's - he can't help but feel a responsibility to see it through, despite the increasingly troubling evidence they are on the trail of a dangerous serial killer.
I love mysteries, I truly do. I am not a big fan of gore, however, and I would not in all likelihood pick out a book on my own that featured violence against children (this is one of a number of books my aunt lent me recently). This book is not gratuitous, but it is also not for the faint of heart - I basically had to put the content of the crime out of my head and focus on the investigation, because thinking about it too much would have made me queasy. I will say that I think the plot moved along at a respectable speed, and things were neither overly simplistic nor needlessly complicated. On the other hand, it never turned into a page-turner.
Madden, whom I realize sounds like the protagonist from my plot description, is not so central as one would assume. Clearly it is meant to be his story, and he is the hero who does a lot of the best detective work, but he's more peripheral than I would have liked. Because author Rennie Airth decided to have Madden as a retired detective (a result of a perilous situation in the first book, apparently), it could never truly be his investigation. That's where characters like Angus Sinclair come in. Unfortunately, Sinclair doesn't have much of a personality. He's only marginally distinctive from the other policemen mentioned, and the major difference between them seemed to be rank - Sinclair is in charge of the investigation, Bennett and Holly are his superiors, Billy Styles is younger and lower on the totem pole - other than that, there's little to speak of. Madden himself is an enigmatic figure, prone to scowling and not saying much. Apparently he was quite angst-ridden in the first book, as a survivor of WWI as well as a grieving widower, but his second marriage* seems to have largely put him on even keel. Nice for him, I suppose, but who wants well-adjusted detectives? Detectives with demons for me, please.
Another facet of the book I found interesting was how un-period it seems to be. Aside from the references to the rise of the Nazi party - the quotation above comes from Jewish psychologist visiting the Madden family from Austria - there is very little that signals you that this book is set when it is. Indeed, in the early pages, with references to motor traffic and a doctor off golfing, it would have been very easy to suppose that the book was relatively modern. Normally I feel like period books have more small touches that make them of the era - things that one assumes required a fair amount of research. To be fair to Airth, perhaps it was a deliberate choice to limit such references, to make the era seem more relevant and to draw parallels to contemporary society. I dig little nods to history, though, so I found the modernism somewhat disappointing
Up next: My Life in France by Julia Child, which I am finding delightful so far.
*Incidentally, Madden's wife, Helen, is a doctor. Although I'm no expert on the era of the book, I have to feel this would be unusual in 1932. No one ever mentions it, though. Perhaps it was discussed sufficiently in the first book?
No comments:
Post a Comment