Firstly, this book is out of order in the Inspector Banks series. Secondly, that hardly matters except perhaps in the sequence of Banks’ sporadic love life. I don’t want to die alone, he surprises himself by thinking. The timing is when Annie Cabot’s hippie father Ray is moving to Eastvale from Cornwall, and DI Winsome is still pregnant. Banks has just attended the funeral of his first love; memories and mixed feelings of his youth return throughout. Now a hidden hillside sniper has shockingly mowed down a wedding party in front of a church, his identity and motive unknown. Not much later, Martin Edgeworth, retired dentist, is found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot. Beside him is the rifle used in the church killings and the drab clothing he’d worn on the hillside to avoid attention. Only by the most diligent examination of so little evidence, thanks particularly to DC Gerry Masterson’s tenacity and instincts, does doubt arise whether Edgeworth is indeed the actual perpetrator.
Enter psych profiler Jenny Hill—a romantic interest for Banks years ago, a mutual but unconsummated attraction. Edgeworth does not fit what is known about mass shooters. Every surviving person in the wedding party has to be interviewed to possibly provide a lead to the elusive motivation; a big concern is whether the killer has more plans. New developments in the case are sometimes belaboured as they are repeated to each team participant, but as always, a good, solid investigative novel where the police must dig deeper than ever before. And also as always, we are left up in the air over Banks’ domestic future. I see that Robinson has been adding Banks’ playlists on his website ... ☺
One-liners
▪ “If you ask me, that’s the story the media will be going with, the aftermath, the human story, not how it was a “win-win” situation for us.” (113)
▪ Women like Gerry Masterson and Jenny Fuller, always elegant, beautiful, well turned out, posh accents, walking around as if they had a stick up their arse, had always irritated her. (166)
▪ It wasn’t that he had failed to lead an unexamined life, just that his life had failed the examination. (187)
▪ “He could probably live in a box at the bottom of a lake with nothing but cold gravel for breakfast if he had to.” (331)
▪ “She only tells you she’s going to do something dangerous when she’s already past the point of no return.” (365)
Multi-liners
▪ He was no longer simply a detective working a case; he was SIO of a very big, high-profile case indeed, and he might not get a full night’s sleep or a proper meal until it was over. (39)
▪ “Losing a friend is a terrible thing, the memories it shakes loose, even if you’ve drifted apart. The panicky feeling that you’re losing bits of yourself.” (57)
▪ Yes, he thought, people do demonstrate clues as to what they are, or feel, or think. Most of us can only hide so much from the rest of the world. We have tells, giveaways. Body language. (148-9)
▪ “I’m a scientist. I’m uncomfortable enough speculating as much as I’ve done.” (161)
Banks loses it:
“You were out of bounds, Alan.” Annie’s tone softened. “No matter what you think of him, Farrow is a witness and a victim, not a suspect. You had no right to treat him like that. I don’t know what it was all about, what’s going on in your mind, but you were way out of bounds. What were you thinking of?”
“I don’t know,” said Banks. “He just pushed all the wrong buttons.” (89-90)
Media liaison officer musing:
“There’s still a need, a hunger, for more knowledge about such things, such people. What makes them tick. What went wrong. How they became defective. They can’t be pigeon-holed, filed, put away in a box marked read and understood. They’re still viable. No matter how much we think we know, the bloke next door could still be a serial killer or a mass murderer. That’s the angle to exploit.”
“But that isn’t our job,” said Banks. “And to be perfectly honest, neither is this. I certainly didn’t sign up to waste my time sitting around coming up with angles for the media to use.” (116)
Their first dinner:
“I didn’t have your address.”
“You’re a detective. You could have tracked me down.” Jenny stared at the table. When she looked up again, her mouth had taken a downward turn. “You don’t get it, do you?”
“What?”
“Never mind.” (145)
Victim support:
Still, plenty of people were embarrassed about seeing shrinks. Annie had felt that way herself after her rape some years ago. In retrospect, though, she thought the visits had done her some good. They had at least speeded her reintegration back into some approximation of normal life. Had she been left to her own devices, she would probably still be wallowing in guilt, anger, anxiety, shame, alcohol and God only knows what else. (169)
Liza Marklund. Without a Trace. 2013. Ebook download from TPL. Penguin/Random House of Canada, 2015.
Reporter Annika Bengtzon is now living with Jimmy Halenius, undersecretary in the Department of Justice, struggling with integrating their families. Her embittered ex-husband Thomas works at the same department, anonymously trying to sabotage her online any chance he gets. Annika is working the same story as detective Nina Hoffman who was promoted to National Crime: the horrendous attack by persons unknown on former politician Ingemar Lerberg, leaving him close to death. What’s more, Lerberg’s wife Nora vanished a few days earlier. After resigning from politics in a tax scandal, Lerberg built a reputed fortune through shipping-related interests. Nora’s disappearance bears a striking resemblance to the case of Viola Söderland, many years before, a rich businesswoman also gone missing without a trace. Annika can’t resist looking into that too; her newspaper boss, Anders Schyman, had once produced a documentary asserting that Viola was still alive in hiding.
As if that isn’t enough to occupy the reader, Schyman is on the point of retirement when he finds himself being trolled on social media, the internet “press.” Critics claim that his documentary conclusion was wrong, that he’s a fraud, going so far as to call for his resignation from the Evening Post. Exaggerations, accusations, and lies fuel a nation-wide barrage of fake news against Schyman. Resignation is off the table now; it would indicate guilt in their eyes. In a way, the firestorm mirrors the old tax-dodging scandal when the press jumped all over Lerberg, led by the Evening Post. Altogether it’s a whopping tale, with responsible news reporting being a recurrent Marklund thread. And so many other threads to follow, personal agendas to decipher! But inserting brief thoughts from two unknown voices is confusing rather than adding to the momentum.
Schyman
▪ He wasn’t leaving things in a bad state. The figures from the past year remained strong, confirming the Evening Post as the biggest newspaper in Sweden. (41)
▪ Since the centre of journalistic activity had slipped from print to the online edition, the sharp edges of the newsroom had faded and dissolved. (104)
▪ Their competitors owned the internet, not as a result of their journalism but because of their flashy adverts, street pictures and traffic information. (107)
▪ Had he really enjoyed a slap-up meal at Ingemar Lerberg’s expense ten days before the paper had made the politician out to be a tax dodger on its front cover? (186)
Annika
▪ The online updates happened in a constant, arrhythmic torrent, made up of every conceivable colour, all mixed together, meaning that the end result was inevitably brown. There was no day, no night. Just a constant howl of stress. (106)
▪ Was everyone else really listening to Korean pop music? (258)
▪ “I thought your boss told the nation where she’d gone?” he said. “Didn’t she run away to Russia?” (348)
▪ “You’ve got to sue him,” Annika said. “He’s crossing all sorts of boundaries now.” (404)
▪ Annika wiped her nose on the sleeve of her jumper (disgusting) and looked up at the little ten-year-old who missed her mum so much she was falling apart, great big tears rolling relentlessly down her soft cheeks. (451)
Nina
▪ “I think you should tell the children,” Nina said. “Who else is going to?” (184)
▪ Was it a child? She clicked back a few frames. There was the figure once more, extremely short, one metre thirty centimetres tall, maybe one forty, dressed in dark clothing. (391)
Saleema Nawaz. Songs for the End of the World. Canada: McClelland & Stewart, 2020.
A very amazing book, written before the current world pandemic but mirroring what we are now experiencing. A world-wide coronavirus erupts and our story follows from a cluster in a Manhattan restaurant; the rampaging virus is named ARAMIS (acute respiratory and muscular inflammatory syndrome). The author’s genius is in her characters—not only how they cope, but how they intersect within (less than?) six degrees of separation, an impressive mindmapping exercise. Elliot is the conscientious cop who seems immune to the virus; his ex-girlfriend Keisha is director of infection control at a large hospital; he is very close to his sister Sarah who lives on her own with young son Noah; their mother Gretchen is a college department head of philosophy, replacing Keelan, retired but now a go-to TV commentator. Eliot’s ex-wife Dory heads a publishing company that employs Sarah and now lives with Julia, Keelan’s daughter.
Then there’s Owen, a stalled novelist, long married to Rachel but serially unfaithful; his book about a global plague, published by Dory’s company, takes off like wildfire. Owen buys the boat formerly owned by Emma’s parents. Emma, with husband Stuart, forms Dove Suite, a popular music band. Edith, at first an unidentified restaurant server blamed as “Aramis girl,” is one of Owen’s lovers, eventually working for Keelan. Several of these women have small children or are pregnant, some giving birth during the adjustment to a new reality. All their ties and connections between past and present emerge and shift in new patterns, in what some perceive as a Hericlitean flow. Important family decisions are made with care; one man has a surprise twist in store. In general, the author avoids the surging protest demonstrations, sometimes violence, that we see in reality. A very worthwhile read for its emphasis on humanity and hope.
A few of the main players:
Elliot
▪ The foot traffic had slowed, the runners wore masks. The ladies no longer lunched. ... It was not business as usual. (45)
▪ “Keisha, I was there,” said Elliot, when the sound stopped. “At the dinner with Mr. Tsiang.” (410)
▪ But he thought about the time between phone calls and emails, the space between messages so much larger than the space between two people in the same room. Communication technology lashed people together but there was no substitute for being there. (511-2)
▪ “This could be the first step on an incredible journey of discovery for you and your extended genetic network.” (599)
Sarah
▪ The more time she spent immersed in the world of his novel, the less she was able to distinguish between the real facts and the invented ones. (267)
▪ “We’re protected from joining in the panic. Do you know what I mean? If we’re not there, we won’t be tested. We can’t get it wrong.” (630)
Owen
▪ The 24-hour news cycle should take responsibility for feeding the idle curiosity of internet troublemakers. (98)
▪ “In real life, the best way to survive a plague is to be alone,” Owen offers. “Just go off somewhere away from other people.” (199)
▪ “It doesn’t help that everything that happened in my novel seems to be coming true. You know, the virus from China, the aerosol transmission, the kids getting sick ...” (256)
Emma
▪ “Can you go through that list of Vancouver tattoo artists I sent you and set something up ASAP?” (352)
▪ If she is always a little bit adrift, then at least she will still be herself. (540)
▪ “If we’ve learned anything over the past year, it’s that sometimes a voice in the darkness can reach out and save you from feeling alone.” (619)
▪ Blaze was delivered by C-section and isolated in quarantine for two days before Emma regained consciousness. (561-2)
▪ “I woke up from a coma and the life that used to be mine was gone.” She crossed her arms, hugging her chest. “After that, I basically had to own it since it’s the only one I have. (666)
Stuart
▪ Jamming with Truscott felt like a kind of harmless violence, a cathartic release of all his academic anxiety. (172)
▪ “But was it me in there?” Jericho asked. “Or the person I used to be?” (185)
Keelan
▪ Keelan had let them down, along with the TV-viewing public, who needed to be told how to feel, what to think, what to do. (468)
▪ “When philosophers are on the evening news, you can be sure society is in crisis.” (489)
Edith
▪ “I don’t like to use that word, normal. It creates a false dichotomy of social acceptability.” (122)
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