Novels No. 43 (LL361)

 

Liz Nugent. Strange Sally Diamond. Simon & Schuster, 2023.

Without a doubt, this is the most unique crime story you will read this year. Words seem scarcely adequate to describe it and its protagonist. Try awesome, heartstopping, extraordinary! We meet Sally when she's on the cusp of middle age, the day her beloved father died. For years, the widower Tom Diamond, a retired psychiatrist, and his adopted daughter have lived on an isolated property near the village of Carricksheedy. To say that Sally understands other people's words literally, depicts only a part of her complex personality. Tom had a habit of lightly saying, "When I die, just put me out with the trash." After ensuring that he is well and truly dead, Sally does exactly that, in a shocking way. Throughout the ensuing consequences—police, headlines, medical evaluations—Sally is sustained by family friend, Dr Angela Caffrey.

The facts of her background, before adoption at the age of five or six, all come out in the media again as they did at the time: her biological mother Denise Norton's kidnapping, forcible confinement, pregnancy, and ultimate rescue. Sally has no memory of that time; Dr Tom has mostly protected her from the discomfort of socializing. Tom deemed her "emotionally disconnected" yet she functions as an independent adult, albeit a brutally honest one with few filters. Sally has resilience. In the publicity aftermath, she acquires a helpful therapist, Tina, and slowly, makes a handful of friends. She meets with relatives of both her deceased mothers, Denise Norton and Jean Diamond.

Conor Geary, who committed the crime so long ago, disappeared without a trace; Sally thinks he is still alive and may come after her—who sent her old teddy bear to her in the mail? But this is also the story of Peter, another child kept isolated by the same twisted criminal, who was told and believes he has a rare disease. When tragedy enters Peter's life, he responds the only way he knows how; he had only one role model. The novel is simply an exceptional accomplishment in writing. Damage done by manipulation and perversion may be rehabilitated with humane treatment. Shocking or poignant, angry or funny—the characters are consistent and compulsive.

One can but admire with awe the author's considerable skills, her sensitivity. Sally is a very, very special person.

Sally

▪ "He just wrote to open it after he died. I didn't know I was supposed to open it the same day." (19)

▪ "It may be evidence," said Angela. "Do you have the wrapping paper it came in?" (62)

▪ I lashed out at Angela with my fists, punching her in the face, the stomach, her arms. (85)

▪ I understood what shame meant. It was one of the emotions I was in touch with. (88)

▪ "I have emotional development issues because of him. I can't call you Aunt Margaret, by the way. That feels wrong." (122)

▪ "My fear of sex and relationships. ... I've found Google helpful, Tina, and I know you won't approve, but I don't think I'm socially deficient. Emotionally, I'm a child." (147)

▪ "I'm forty-four and I don't know what I want to be when I grow up." That was my little joke, but neither of them laughed. (149)

▪ Stella thinks I should start dating. Like I said, she is funny. (124)

▪ "Look, you fucking weirdo, in the beginning I felt sorry for you, even after what you did to your poor father, because you were on your own, but now everyone feels sorry for you because of what happened when you were a kiddie." (131-2)

Peter

▪ "Oh my God, you're just like him. He'll turn you into a monster too if you don't escape." (104)

▪ "It's called necrotic hominoid contagion. If you touched another person, you would get sick and you could die, a painful death." (108)

▪ "Your stupid mother seems to have forgotten about you. They don't appear to know you exist, and by the time they do, we'll be on the other side of the world." (144)

▪ The biggest change was that I was no longer a secret. Dad was proud to introduce me to people we met. (154)

▪ Dad told our sob story about the poor dead mum and wife. This elicited sympathy and congratulations to my father for raising me alone. (154)

▪ I was desperate to socialize, but my inarticulation made it hard. (154)

▪ "Anyway, she sounds the same as my mother!" I said, delighted that we had this in common, mad and dangerous mothers. (167)

▪ "You wanted a friend. I got you one. Now, quit whining!" (193)

▪ "I can't believe a word you say, Dad." (204)

▪ I took the car that night and drove for hours, but where could I go, and who could I tell? (205)

Kjell Ola Dahl. Little Drummer. 2003. UK: Orenda Books, 2022.

An interesting find while my TPL waiting list languished. And a mouthful of names from this popular Nordic Noir writer: Gunnarstranda is the cop charged with wrapping up the case of Kristine Ramm who died with a syringe of heroin in her arm, his superiors believing it's a typical overdose (and a demeaning job for an overly smug policeman); his team includes Emil Yttergjerde, Lena Stigersand, and Frank Frølich. Gunnerstranda's unusual request for an autopsy, in such a case, reveals that someone else administered the drug. Nothing in the victim's history or friendships indicates that she was a drug user. The last contact she had before death was several unanswered phone calls to Stuart Takeyo—but Takeyo, a Black man from Kenya, vanished at about the same time.

It's evident to me that the interplay/interaction among the cops is an essential story ingredient, but the collegial familiarity is lost in translation. Apparently also, Gunnerstranda's, or Frølich's, mind makes quantum leaps from one fact or discovery to another without a key transition. It could be that I walked into a well-established series. While I appreciate the author's subtle style, I struggled to follow who did what in a sea of Norwegian place names. Plus, I was on mighty painkillers for a botched molar extraction that could have been rendering me particularly stupid. Therefore: speed reading began when Frølich, in the wake of an inquisitive and mysteriously well-informed journalist, Lise Fagernes, is sent to Africa after Takeo. Naturally, many factors are in play before a killer is nailed. High class yacht parties, corrupt policemen, African poverty, environmental projects—all encountered because someone is killing in order to conceal lucrative investor fraud.

A quicker head than mine will follow the intricacies of international aid and financing. A different change of pace—it grows on you.

Bits

▪ The satisfaction of paying a senior officer back for a deliberate slight and also precipitating a row between two people who occasionally riled him put him in such a good mood that he determined at once to do some field work and clarify the identity of the victim.(13)

▪ "Don't forget that Stuart, with his academic background and all the status he's acquired, would be a privileged person in his home country." (46)

▪ "My jaw dropped when I saw Stuart being rowed over and climbing on board a boat like that. It didn't ring true. (79)

▪ "You forced through the autopsy, now you're leaving me to finance an operation outside Norway?" (122)

▪ "Pederson himself has had no declared income since 1995, but lives in a villa in Snarøya, where he drives low-slung cars and eats high-class cuisine, to use their jargon." (126)

▪ "The only person who can be officially linked with Nor-Comp is Britt Lise Staw, the old lady with Alzheimer's in Stokke, and by definition she isn't responsible for her actions and so will never be charged with anything." (158)

▪ She shouted to her son again, than laid a slim hand on his thigh and whispered, "I'm gonna make you a very happy man." (160)

▪ The older boy seemed to know what he was thinking and said: "It's true. I know where he is." (168)

▪ Lise cleared her throat. She felt a touch of dizziness and was unable to think clearly. The dark corridor, the dreadful stench, the man's impenetrability. (173)

▪ "My job was to convince the police that you had nothing to do with the murder." (196)

▪ "Following clues after a murder is like gathering the fragments of a dream. It's all about finding pieces of some surrealistic act and trying to make them fit into a comprehensible picture." (201)