A murder mystery/thriller/horror novel that fairly well defines "mediocre." It's got a decent plot angle and some slightly non-cardboard characters, but it's never really exciting or thrilling. It's only got
a few reviews on Amazon, all of them very short, but most of them fairly positive. They liked it better than I did, anyway. One review gives away the plot twist/murderer's identity, and so don't read them all if you've got any possibility of ever reading this book, since the secret killer is about all it has going for it.
I reveal it below, in my discussion, but at least I put it after a spoiler warning. I'm not really sure why, since I don't recommend you read the book anyway.
Ritual , by William Heffernan, 1989
Plot: 5
Concept: 8
Writing Quality/Flow: 4/5
Characters: 4
Fun Factor: 6
Page Turner: 4
Re-readability: 4
Overall: 5.5
The concept is the best part of this novel. It's set in NYC in the modern day (late 1980s was when the book was written, but it feels contemporary, other than the absence of cell phones). A major museum and art gallery are hosting a joint show about Incan/Mayan culture, especially focusing on their forms of ritual murder/ceremonial sacrifice. As the show is going on, people start getting murdered, killed by ancient obsidian blades, beheaded, and partially-skinned just like the ancients used to do. A pretty young female (of course) museum director is marked as the final victim, and the brave, jaded, but still noble police detective is assigned to the case and is determined to find the killer before the woman dies. Lots of other people keep getting ritually knocked off in the meantime, and the plot thickens (sort of) as most of the apparent suspects fall victim as well, in suitably gory fashion.
The book's gimmick is that most of the murder scenes are presented from the PoV of the murder victims. And they always know the murderer, and their last words are always something along the lines of, "Oh, what a surprise to see you here. Wait.. what are you doing? Arghhhh!" These scenes are kind of cool initially, but soon come to feel very manipulative, since they're written so carefully to keep from giving any hints about who the murderer is. They just feel so artificial, as characters who have been thinking normally as they narrate the events suddenly become robotic. Avoiding all gendered pronouns, not thinking names, places, or things that they obviously would when seeing the mystery murderer who they know quite well, etc. I played along, and the scenes weren't jarringly awful, but they always took me out of the story since the technique was so transparently a gimmick designed to (attempt to) create suspense.
The bigger problem was that I didn't care. None of the characters were very interesting or involving, the overall story had no real thrust or emphasis, I didn't care if they died or lived or solved the crime, I wasn't rooting for the detective or the cops, or feeling protective of the damsel in distress, etc. It was a competently-written book, but one lacking in any real sparkle or engaging characterization. So I read it to find out how it turned out, and to get to the shocking revelation of the mystery killer's identity, but only because I do about an hour of cardio 4-5 times a week at the gym, and I have to read something, and this one had been on my bookshelf for years, since I picked it up at a library giveaway.
It's still there, but now it's in the back row, where the books I've read (and will never read again) get slotted. Mission accomplished?
Spoiler: The murderer? The hero detective.
It's sort of a surprise; as far as I was trying to guess (not very far) I was leaning towards the damsel in distress being the murderer, but I didn't get any kind of "ooh, snap!" moment when the reveal was made, since it's so random and unjustified. The cop knew no one involved in this incident before it began, and he had no connection to the historical weapons or Mayan culture. So there's no reason for him to be doing it now, when he'd been obsessed by murders and the best homicide detective on the force for decades. The explanation is that he's having some kind of split personality psychotic break; he doesn't know he's doing it, and when he's in his right mind he's furiously investigating the crimes.
It could have worked better as something of a psychological thriller; if the detective had started to find clues that implicated himself, and had to grapple with the possibility that he was doing it. Or if there'd been clues for the reader that we were to suspect him. But it's kept secret and then sprung at the end, and it feels more like a carpet being yanked out, rather than a good surprise reveal. The detective has been the main character all along, he's handled most of the narration from a first person PoV, and he's never exhibited any fishy behavior, black outs, etc.
In the end he's given some background history; the wife and daughter who allegedly vanished on him 15 years before were actually his first victims, and he's had them rotting in a trunk in his basement ever since. But he seems not to know that, and has been assiduously searching for his lost daughter ever since. He also doesn't know he's committing any of the crimes, and doesn't seem to ever suspect that he's losing his mind, or blacking out, etc. I'll give the author points for trying to twist the surprise ending, but it worked much better in concept than execution. So to speak.
Labels: book review
