Library Limelights 195

Blogger gone nuts again ...

Franck Thilliez. Syndrome E. (2010) USA: Penguin Books, 2014.

The puzzle begins in France with murder victims whose eyes and brains have been removed. Earlier, similar victims were uncovered in Egypt. Inspector Sharko, criminal profiler, and detective Lucie Henebelle combine their talents to decipher an obscure film that unknown assailants are killing people for. The targets are narrowed to a sadistic filmmaker and a mad scientist even though their identities and whereabouts are unknown. Many answers lie in Canada (with some amusing false national stereotypes). Science freaks alert: lots of technical detail about how the eyes and brain receive/perceive images. Unmasking evil experiments with terms like mass hysteria, mental contamination, deep brain stimulation, and atrophied amygdala is enough to make you dizzy.

If any of this sounds familiar, yes, some of the convoluted investigation is predicated on the secret CIA mind control/brainwashing experiments in Montreal 1957-1964, called MKUltra — one of the most egregious, horrifying projects ever perpetrated here. The book spins off from there, but not far. Even France's Foreign Legion is involved. The growing tenderness between the schizophrenic(!) Sharko and the passionate cop Lucie provides relief from pages of intensity. Educational and entertaining!

One-liners:

▪ "Our filmmaker didn't simply want to hide weird images in his film, he wanted to conceal a whole other film, a parallel film, completely insane." (156)

▪ They were brushing up against a darkness that had engulfed poilitics, religion, and science, and that had insinuated itself into the recesses of sick minds." (345)

▪ Lucie stepped forward, almost hypnotized, so shocked to finally see in the flesh a person lost in the black and white of a fifty-year-old film. (359) 

Multi-liners:

▪ She thought about those subliminal images, inside her now against her will. She felt them vibrating somewhere inside her, without knowing precisely where. (60)

▪ Lucie stood there, mouth agape. That had certainly been the densest and most intriguing phone call of her entire life.

Science in action(?)

It was both staggering and horrible. A world governed by images and the control of the subconscious, in which the barriers of rationality were bypassed. Could one still speak of free will? Seeing all these perfected tools working on the brain, Lucie was reminded of the fantasy of the optogram: they were in the heart of the matter, and it wasn't so fantastic after all.

"So I'm not entirely off the mark if I say that an image can leave an imprint in the brain?"

"That's exactly right—you've understood the basis of our work. You study fingerprints; we study brain prints. Every action leaves a trace, whatever it might be. The whole trick lies in knowing how to detect it, and having the tools that let you exploit it." (151)

The aging actress:

"Why make a film with scenes like that? What was the point, do you think?"

She thought for a moment. Her fingers squeezed the large sapphire on her ring finger.

"To feed perverse minds, Inspector."

She sank into a long silence before continuing.

"To offer them power, sex, and death through film. Jacques didn't want to just provoke or shock with images. He wanted the image to alter human behavior." (225)

Ramifications:

"A friend of mine, Ludovic Sénéchal, completely lost his sight after watching that film. It's called hysterical blindness. The images made his brain malfunction. Is that the kind of thing you're talking about?"

"It's much worse than that. Hysterical blindness is a purely psychological phenomenon. In the case of mental contamination, not only is the brain structure modified—I mean physically modified—but, worse, a chain reaction spreads from person to person, like a virus. You'll see what I mean." (306)

Sharon Bolton. Awakening. USA: Minotaur Books, 2009. 

Snakes. A great many pages concern snakes (more than you wanted to know: proceed at your peril). Clara is a wild-animal veterinarian in a small village of southwest England; her facial disfigurement from a childhood accident, and the inevitable reactions from people, govern her reclusive life apart from her profession. She goes to extreme lengths to avoid social contact. But a proliferation of poisonous, non-native snakes in her village leads her to call upon the eccentric Sean, a world expert on reptiles. When people begin to die from snake-bite or otherwise, policeman Matt wants to solve the mystery of where the snakes originated and who is controlling them. Clara is also mystified by glimpses of long-dead Walter Witcher near his decaying old home.

Clara plunges ahead, mostly on her own, following up clues to identify the unstable person causing so much fear and death ‒ in fact, she herself comes under police suspicion at one point ‒ and at least three candidates emerge. Expert snake handling is a rare gift and was not unknown in the village years earlier. Influences of cults like the Church of the Latter Rain (a real entity) and the now-gone Witcher family come to light as elderly residents are pressed for information. Why did four people die in a fire at the local church so long ago? Are Dorset's oil reserves a hidden factor? As she interacts with so many people in order to find the perpetrator, Clara's psychological scars begin to heal ... she can even entertain some romantic notions. A well-written, most unusual crime novel ‒ a gothic thriller, if you will ‒ with a prolonged, scary climax.

One-liners:

▪ There really is no getting away from the Church when your father is an archdeacon. (141)

▪ It really didn't matter how low a profile I kept, how well I hid my face away from the world, someone always thought they could judge me on how I look. (193)

▪ I lowered myself on to the soft leather and discovered that it's possible to be nervous in the presence of a man and yet not want to leave. (282)

▪ It wasn't until later, when he pulled back a fraction, that I realized he'd kissed me. (285)

Multi-liners:

▪ Matt slowly shook his head. "You really don't do the human race, do you?" he said. (194)

▪ As though being badly disfigured automatically makes you a better person. Like what's inside, by default, has to make up for what's gone wrong on the surface. (197)

▪ Even I can tell the difference between religious fervour and sexual arousal. Ruby was in the grip of one powerful fifty-year-old memory. (306)

▪ "You killed your mother, Clara. She drank herself to death because she couldn't bear the sight of you. Isn't that right?" (373)

The burnt church:

The stone archways stretched up, just about supporting the blackened, fire-eaten ceiling beams. Ahead of me, lining up in the nave like the remains of a long-forgotten army, the charcoal-black pews stood empty and crumbling.

Inside the church walls, there was nothing to protect me from the foul stench of the bat colony, and the combination of rotting flesh and faeces was sickening. The wind howled, bats screamed and dry leaves hissed and rattled.

I hadn't wanted to dwell on what Violet had told me, but in the place where much of it happened, it was impossible not to. Looking ahead, to where the chancel rails separated the altar from the rest of the church, it was as though Ulfred were still there: tethered, weak with hunger, bewildered and terrified. (208)

A river of them:

Snakes ... dozens of them ... maybe hundreds. They were rippling through the long grass like ribbons flowing from a child's streamer. Their bodies gleamed slick and wet, shining in the moonlight. They moved over the land with a collective purpose, a common goal, driven by an instinct I could never begin to understand. (219)

Claustrophobic stalking:

I rushed forward, knowing I had seconds. No, I didn't. A second figure was blocking the way out. Staggering backwards, I shot both hands out to grasp the tunnel wall and steady myself. My right hand connected, the other didn't. My left arm was gaping in space where the tunnel wall should have been. I switched the torch back on.

The bricks lining the tunnel-sides had fallen away at this point, to reveal another tunnel, smaller than the one I was in but also part-filled with flowing water. This new tunnel was no brick-lined river aqueduct but a much cruder passageway that had been hacked out of the rock. The beam gave up before the tunnel finished, and I had no idea how long it was. (224)

Lucy Foley. The Hunting Party. Large Print. USA: Harper Luxe / HarperCollins, 2019.

You'd know that the word "Highland" would catch my attention: an isolated hunting lodge in deepest Scotland. Nine old friends get together for their annual New Year's Eve sleepover party ... a classic closed-group whodunnit, plus we don't know who went missing, a murder victim, until near the end. Emma is the organizer of this year's event; Miranda is the reliable life of the party; Katie is the quiet one. The narrative alternates among these three, with some input from Doug and Heather, the lodge's two employees. One couple and the assorted men are more like wild cards in this collection of yuppie Oxbridge graduates, as each narrator privately critiques personalities and relationships.

Not compelling right off the bat but interest grows as their backgrounds unfold. All is not as jolly and tightly knit as appears on the surface. Each seems to have a concealed grudge against someone else. Not to mention an ominous pair of Icelanders camping nearby. Foley is genius at pacing, switching smoothly from the words and thoughts of one to another to move the ongoing action. Sequence shifts between searching for/finding the body and events of the two preceding days. Doug and Heather try to be objective during the growing tension and advent of a blinding snowstorm, hiding their personal miseries behind professional manners. A game of Truth or Dare leads to a long night from which some of the company won't return, some mentally, one physically. The Hunting Party is Lucy Foley's first crime novel after several in the historical fiction genre, and she scores a big win.

Emma:

▪ But it's her eyes that are most disturbing. I know this look, it is that of someone on the edge. (295)

▪ So I was always on the lookout for particularly colorful personalities, like a parasite seeking a host. (418)

Miranda:

▪ I bet the nearest Bo normally gets to a real fire is a flaming sambuca shot. (49)

▪ All that history. We know everything there is to know about one another. (50)

▪ I could run like this forever. Nothing hurts when you're drunk. (433)

Katie:

▪ Miranda has always been a champion bluffer. (60)

▪ With this group I have always been an also-ran. (69)

Heather:

▪ Here, loneliness is the natural state of things. (211)

▪ Finally, he meets my eyes. The expression in his is that of a drowning man. (372)

▪ I try to think beyond the wailing panic alarm in my head. (391)

Doug:

▪ Remove all of the distractions, and here, in the silence and solitude, the demons they have kept at bay catch up with them. (27)

▪ He has been lying awake for hours now, like an animal whose territory has been encroached upon, who cannot rest until the threat is gone. (141)

Lockdown:

[Heather] We always warn the guests that they might not be able to leave the estate if conditions are bad. It's even in the waiver they have to sign. And yet it is till hard to process, the fact that no one can get in. Or out. But that's exactly the situation we find ourselves in now. Everything is clogged with snow, meaning driving's impossible—even with winter tires, or chains—so our search has all been done on foot. It has been just Doug and me. I am beyond exhausted—both mentally and physically. (33)

Deer season:

[Doug] There's a change in the group. He noticed it even before the argument between the man with the glasses and the beautiful blonde. He has seen it happen before, this shift. It starts with the rifles. Each of them is suddenly invested with a new, terrible power. At first, during the target practice, they flinched with each report, at the jump of the device as it punched bruises into the flesh beneath their shoulders. But quickly—too quickly, perhaps—it became natural, and they were leaning into each shot: focused, intent. They began enjoying themselves. But something else crept in, too. A sense of competition. More than that ... something primeval has been summoned.

g phone call of her entire life. (79)

▪ A man alone, terribly alone. And wounded. Like her. (91)

▪ Shut in the bathroom, he ran the cold water and sank below the surface, breath taken away, body freezing. The tall enameled edges threw up familiar ramparts, reassuring him. (145)