Novels No. 45 (LL363)

 

Dervla McTiernan. What Happened to Nina? USA: HarperCollins, 2023.

When we meet her, Nina Fraser seems like a refreshing twenty-year-old college student, passionate about the sport of climbing and her long-term boyfriend Simon Jordan. But Simon has undergone a slow change from caring lover to possessive abuser—a change she believes is temporary, that their mutual love will resolve it. Near the end of their climbing vacation together at Stowe, Nina approaches Simon to talk out the issue; that's when her presence vanishes from the story. Her hardworking parents Leanne and Andy report her missing; detective Matthew Wright takes the case with officer Sarah Jane Reid as assistant. Simon came home early from the vacation, saying Nina broke up with him and has a new guy. Days go by, no Nina.

Simon's parents Jamie and Rory are stereotypes—the entitled wealthy—furious that Simon, their only son, looks bad in the media for leaving Nina on her own. Rory hires a "reputation management" firm to disseminate disinformation, disparaging Nina's alleged behaviour to deflect from malicious talk of his son. The voracious internet takes over, bottom feeders eager to trash anyone and everyone involved. Consequences from the fallout are destroying anguished members of both families, including Nina's younger sister Grace. A search party is mounted for the extensive vacation property—it happens to be owned by the Jordans—but aside from an erratic sniffer dog, there's no trace of Nina. Or was the dog erratic? Very well-played by author McTiernan with spontaneous defensive and offensive moves by both sets of desperate parents—parental protection in the extreme.

Who will win this ungodly battle of character assassination? And what happened to Nina? Our dependency and thriving on internet devices is all too evident, especially when they support the worst in us. Top marks to McTiernan for superb irony regarding human folly.

Nina

▪ I told myself that Simon was just going through an insecure stage, that I knew the real him and that we'd get back there again if I could just make him understand how much I loved him. (3)

▪ It's the most sickening thing in the world, losing the support of your rope. (6)

The Frasers

▪ I was certain that I would find her, if I could just get to Stowe without any interruption. (56)

▪ We were smart, capable people, and it was too much to ask that we switch off our brains and put away our abilities and do nothing while our daughter was missing. (107)

▪ Our girls were our life, but the inn was our home. Our safe place. And these bastards, these sad, bored, basement-dwelling bastards with their pathetic conspiracy theories and their desperate need for attention, they were going to destroy it all. (203-4)

▪ "She's not here. She's not in school." He sounded panicked. Terrified. (204)

▪ "I'm begging you," Lee said. "Mother to mother. I know you understand that I ... that we can't survive unless we know what happened to Nina." (238)

The Jordans

▪ "She dumped me on Friday night. I asked her if she'd been seeing someone behind my back and she didn't deny it." (26)

▪ Breaking into our home was the behavior of a crazy woman. A normal person would have asked the police to check the house, if they were that worried. (96)

▪ "She pointed her finger straight at Simon at that press conference. We can't just stand back and let her do that." (102)

▪ "If the world decides that Simon did something to Nina, you and I will be picked apart. They always blame the parents." (102)

▪ I knew my son. I knew him. He was not a murderer. (127)

▪ "What matters is that we keep muddying the waters. People are going to be talking either way." (182-3)

▪ "With both girls running away, it does call into question what's happening in the home, doesn't it? Clearly something isn't right there." (220)

▪ "Jesus, Grace. You're acting crazy. Maybe it runs in the family." (234)

Peter May. A Winter Grave. UK: riverrun/Quercus, 2023.

Little did I realize this novel was set thirty years into the future, but hey, open mind, right? Lose the distaste for dystopian settings. DI Cameron Brodie is not your eager new detective nor your jaded Glasgow cynic, but he is worn out. His boss sends him into the Highlands (in a marvellous driver-less drone-copter) to investigate the perfectly preserved body of a man discovered frozen in a chunk of ice. Identified as Charles Younger, a journalist, he exhibits numerous bruises and a broken neck, consistent with a beating or a bad fall. The mountain rescue volunteers, many of whom work at the nearby nuclear facility, had a hell of a time freeing the body. No one seems to know what the man was doing in their area. Pathologist Dr Sita Roy is on the spot, collecting DNA evidence from his fingernails. Due to constant storms, the power is often out, stopping all communications.

A twist: The lone local policeman, Robbie Sinclair, is married to Brodie's daughter Addie—a daughter who angrily cut him out of her life ten years ago. Brodie knew of them in advance; burdened with a grim medical diagnosis, he wants time for her to hear her mother's true story. But someone is stalking them; Younger's body disappears only to be replaced by another. Avalanche slide, river immersion, transportation malfunction—Brodie is tested to the limits of his flagging strength. Climate change weather is a big factor in this story, and the author provides a graphic atmosphere. Besides the crime thrills, an amazing love story lurks AND a smashing climax! (not to mention my ancestral island has a role :)

After all: there's nothing here that isn't predictable thirty years from now—flooding in coastal cities, rampant urban rats and cockroaches, crumbling infrastructure, abandoned buildings, but nevertheless the inexorable progress of technology and AI. Certainly one of prolific Peter May's best novels.

Now

▪ "Well, it [GAN] stands for generative adversarial network, in which two neural networks use AI to out-predict one another." (13)

▪ "Bring the glasses into play, and they provide an augmented reality VR screen that allows you to receive video calls, surf the internet, or interpret the world around you. Facial recognition is instant. Everything functions on voice command." (24-5)

▪ "Ironic, isn't it?" he said. "A nuclear power plant at one end of the loch, and a hydroelectric power station at the other, and all we seem to get all winter these days is power cuts." (98)

▪ "You're a material witness. And like it or not, you're going to have to take your father up the mountain to show him where you found the body." (134)

▪ A vast slab of snow beneath his feet began to slide, and he instantly lost his balance, falling backwards as a sound like the roar of a jet engine filled his ears. (162)

▪ Addie had created a life for herself. A family. He had no right to come barging in to ruin yet more lives. (181)

▪ "He's just ... well, hopelessly addicted. He's put almost everything in hock to feed his habit. Online. Always online." (255)

▪ "His piece in the paper and on the internet, Mr. Brodie, was going to blow this government clean out of the water." (281)

Before

▪ Words hurled at him in a fury, barely heard in the moment, and now lost in time. But the shrill tone of anger and accusation still lived with him in every moment of every day. (111)

▪ "Oh, my God! He's back! Oh, my God, Cammie, you've got to go." She turned to face me with real fear in her eyes. (189)

▪ What was I going to do? Turn around and drive away? Accept that life with Mel as I'd known it was over? (229)

▪ "I can't even explain it ..." Her words came staccato through her sobs. "He ... he just has this hold on me." (232)