Library Limelights 287

 

Should I have a rating system? You know ‒ stars? Everyone’s a critic, eh? Just talking to myself here. Professional, trained critic I am obviously not. Thing is, a system would need categorization of what “standards” I expect and enjoy. Using a scale of 1-5 is pretty common, but everyone’s opinions and preferences in reading material are different. A system may only be relevant for those who share similar tastes.

               So what exactly are my preferences?

▪ CHARACTERS = At least one relatable, resonant character; credible emotional reactions; smart in-character dialogue. No impossible-to-swallow psychological pathology.

▪ PLOT = Ingenuity counts. Clever, entertaining, with unexpected surprises or “reveals”; credible research re location, occupations, etc.; a fitting climax whether explosive or sneaky; a satisfying conclusion but not necessarily a “happy” ending.

▪ STRUCTURE/STYLE = Comprehensive structure (especially with backstories); narration that flows from one person or time period to another with no confusion; no long expository paragraphs; no gratuitous sex or severed body parts; humour when feasible; Noir is okay but not too dark or gritty; no horror or sci-fi.

▪ LANGUAGE = Commanding use of English, whether literary or vernacular; setting tone and mood but not overdoing it.

                  What have I forgotten?

                  Stars seem a bit boring overdone. Still mulling.

Tyrell Johnson. The Lost Kings. USA: Anchor Books/Penguin, 2022.

Jeanie and Jamie are twins; Jeanie was bold and pretty much fearless, Jamie was timid and musical. Jeanie narrates between her past and her present, the latter involving verbal sparring with her counsellor, Dr Gardner. The twins’ formative years were spent in a rustic northwest American cabin with their father, Johnathan King, ex-military, heavy drinker, and afflicted with PTSD that manifests from time to time.

At the age of thirteen, Jeanie got into a fight with Stacy, the lowlife girlfriend Johnathan kept bringing home to bed. End result: Johnathan reacted to protect his daughter, threw Stacy out, Stacy ran, a raging Johnathan followed her in his truck. It’s not the first time the kids have seen him go berserk. Next morning, Jeanie was astonished to find both her father and her brother were gone, never to be seen again. She pretended at school that all was normal, but the police get involved, suspecting that Johnathan killed Stacy and vanished. Against her will, Jeanie is sent to an aunt, parting from Maddox, her budding boyfriend.

The absence ‒ the loss – of Jamie affects Jeanie deeply, but memories of her father’s violence are also haunting. Would he, did he, try to kill Jamie? She stays in Oxford, England, after obtaining her degree, being counselled by psychologist Dr Gardner. But all the time she struggles with conflicting emotions, abandonment, sometimes feeling torn apart. Later in life Maddox, now an investigative journalist, reconnects with her; somehow he has learned where Johnathan is still hiding. At last, Jeanie can confront her father. Her pathology seems quite credible in the final surprises. Well done, Mr Johnson. But did I read too fast and skip something? For the life of me, can’t figure the significance of three kings other than the three family members.

One-liners

▪ My therapist tells me that we are the products of all the choices we’ve made in our lives, and each day is a new choice, a chance to reshape who and what we are. (10)

▪ “Dad owes me answers,” I say instead of answering his question. (135)

▪ I think they were hoping that Maddox was the missing piece to my fucked-up life. (190)

▪ Maddox was an anomaly: he’d always been so settled in who he was, he couldn’t be bothered to worry about whether people liked him. (192)

▪ I was distancing myself from the life I’d fallen into, the past I wanted to forget, the self I wanted to be torn from. (209)

Multi-liners

▪ Jamie would follow me around and do exactly as I said because, even though we were the same age, I always felt like his big sister, and he seemed to agree. (20)

▪ Maddox always had this way about him. An aura, you might say. Like anything he did or wore or said was exactly the right thing. (60)

▪ “No one is completely normal. Normal is a relative term.” (60)

▪ “And how did that make you feel?” he asked. It was a cliché question. Therapists shouldn’t be allowed to ask it. (102)

▪ “I’m just getting to know ya, that’s all. I’m the dad here, it’s my job. I’m fucking Dad.” (109)

▪ I reached a hand to Dad’s knuckles, his fingers taut as ropes around my neck. Behind him, Jamie appeared, his face contorted, tears on his cheeks, his little fists slamming into Dad’s back and shoulders. (111-2)

▪ I like to downplay things. Dr. Gardner tells me this all the time. (244)

Maddox visits

Both of us were affected by what had happened, but I was the only one who understood it for what it was. I wasn’t good enough. I was fucked up. If he stayed with me, I’d fuck him up, too. Only now do I realize what I was doing: rejecting him before he could reject me. Leaving him before I could be left. I was never going to be that little girl alone in the cabin again.

When he said good night at my door, I let him kiss me one more time, but I saw the look on his face and could do nothing about it. He understood. He was losing me and he didn’t know why. (196)

Jørn L. Horst & Thomas Enger. Unhinged. 2020. Ebook download from TPL. UK: Orenda Books, 2022.

Police detective Alexander Blix is being interviewed by colleague Bjarne Brogeland regarding a shooting. So is Emma Cramm, a news blogger, being interviewed for the same reason. It slowly dawns (on me) that the crime is being related wholly via the interviews. The cop-to-cop talk in the present, alternating with past actions, can be confusing time-wise, especially with Blix’s daughter Iselin being injured more than once. Crimes, plural, because policewoman Sofia Kovic has been killed, and a stranger was shot four times—a man who’d abducted Iselin. Brogeland prods Blix along, to verbally unwind a painful, tragic series of events the day before.

But it’s not over. Kovic had been researching three old cases on her own time—no one knows why―or why she was killed. Interviews temporarily over, Blix and Emma separately pursue an even more complicated tangle to find Kovic’s real killer. Nevertheless, police procedure builds a theory of Blix’s guilt in both shootings, as outlined by his boss, Gard Fosse. Still emotionally shaken, Blix desperately wants to find a common denominator with the old cases. Names and characters are a reader’s challenge as they multiply. Getting the story piecemeal initially makes one impatient, but it’s well done. I feel that despite great suspense, the story declines near the end with weak psychological usage. The two Norwegian Noir authors are veterans at collaboration, this being the third in a series about Blix. Maybe it’s just that Blix, in the midst of intense drama, is a pushover.

Bits

▪ It felt like they were wasting time, but he knew he was only dragging out the process even more by rising to Brogeland’s provocations. (30)

▪ “So you left Iselin at the hospital?” (43)

▪ “It’s all going to be okay,” Emma assured her. “I’ll be waiting right here.” (93)

▪ “But you didn’t wait for her, did you?” (94)

▪ “Who knew that Iselin had an appointment with you today?” he asked. “Did you mention it to anyone?” (137)

▪ “I’m telling you exactly what happened, as it happened. I don’t need to hear your opinion. That’s not your job.” (172)

▪ “I was just told to get him a car, but he’s mental. He shot me ...” (193)

▪ “Whatever the case may be, let me remind you that you have broken every single one of our protocols,” he said. (223)

▪ “This is absurd, Gard,” he said at last. (260)

▪ “It hit him quite hard, my not wanting to be with him anymore.” (339)

▪ “He wanted the police to shoot him?” (340)