Novels No. 119

 

Karin Alvtegen. Missing. 2000. Tr. 2003. Toronto: Penguin Canada, 2006.

(In-house grab; TPL, hurry up) Obviously there’s a mystery going on when a thirty-two-year-old woman from a well-to-do family is homeless, living day to day scrounging for food and a place to sleep. For fifteen years?! Sibylla Forsenström chose to live on the margins, rejecting her family for reasons that slowly unfold. As if that weren’t tough enough, presently Sibylla is wanted by police for the gory murder of Jorgen Grundberg—she didn’t do it, but she had interacted with him. She wants to tell the cops the truth but knows she won’t be believed; it’s imperative that she stay out of sight. This predicament alternates with scenes from Sibylla’s miserable childhood with cruel mother Beatrice. As a lonely child who didn’t fit middle class expectations, the constant stress drove her into a psychotic break at age fifteen.

Newspaper headlines tell Sibylla that another murder has occurred with herself being blamed. At any turn for potential help, Sibylla is either blocked or abused until she finds a deserted school attic for refuge. Patrick, a sympathetic teenager, also frequents the attic—someone she can relate her history to for the first time. Together, he decides, they will figure out who or what is behind the killings. Nevertheless, bits of the story have a disconnected feel. Is the author’s intent to make Sibylla suffer as much as possible? When does violence become gratuitous? Did I mention a trope: spooky voice appearing in italics, ranting religious gibberish?

Not exactly uplifting, Missing is a sad chronicle of mental abuse shaping a child’s adulthood, although Alvtegen’s characterizations often seem awkward or amateurish. Just one of a few inconsistencies: it’s hard to reconcile Sibylla’s rough street life with a groomed woman attracting men in a sophisticated restaurant. The further I read, the less cohesive the characters felt. So I can hardly agree with the cover blurb!

The Present

▪ Being left alone to mind her own business was all she ever wanted. She’d managed to do just that for fifteen years. (52)

▪ It was intolerable that when she spoke to her mother for the last time, she had been reduced to apologising yet again. (205)

▪ Slowly but surely she adjusted to the more or less overt contempt of people she encountered. The recognition that she was a loser only sealed her solidarity with the other outcasts. (205)

▪ Why should anyone go to the trouble of murdering four severely ill individuals? (264)

The Past

▪ “In fact, you must not socialise with that kind of person, with none of these boys.” (116)

▪ That woman had turned her existence into a never-ending imprisonment. In Sibylla’s eyes her mother was transformed into an absurd monster. (126)

▪ “Cheers, Mummy. I just thought of something. Why don’t you get up on a chair and sing a Christmas song for everyone? It would be so nice.” (128)

▪ “You mustn’t take him away, he’s all I’ve got.” (199)

Tim Sullivan. The Dentist. 2020. USA: First Grove Atlantic, 2025.

(Another in-house grab; I see my TPL branch is closed due to flooding for the umpteenth time by faulty pipes in a faulty building; no wonder they are moving to a new location next year!)

DS George Cross is definitely the best and most interesting detective in DS Carson’s police squad; his place on the autism spectrum was formerly known as Asperger’s. Lacking social skills but logic personified, he is not easy to get along with, while partner Josie Ottey is acclimatizing. And the climate is highly entertaining. Their case is to identify a murdered homeless man and find his killer. A drifter called Badger becomes the suspect and is then arrested, so Carson is satisfied to close the case. But George Cross is not satisfied; he learns that Badger is a former war hero fallen on hard times. Cross is also instrumental in identifying the victim as Leonard Carpenter, a respectable dentist who’d gone missing years ago after his wife Hilary was killed. Wife and husband both murdered, even so far apart, speaks one and the same killer to Cross.

The Dentist is not built on plot twists and surprises; it’s character-driven by this gifted policeman of unusual methods. As his life is also dominated by his intrinsic condition. Cross and Ottey, with newbie cop Alice Mackenzie are about to meet the Carpenter family – Leonard’s three daughters – and solve this case. No one had seen nor heard from Leonard and they’d had him declared dead after seven years; they are shocked he’d still been alive and homeless. For a long time he’d been obsessed with finding his wife’s killer, collecting all kinds of information. The detectives face any number of frustrating issues, beginning with now-retired cop Stuart MacDonald – once upon a time Cross’ superior officer – who had conducted a sloppy, inconclusive investigation into Hilary’s death.

Through it all, Cross follows his own rationale with or without the approval or assistance of others. Often viewed as rude by those who know nothing of Asperger’s, he unintentionally sets up very funny dialogue exchanges. Yet he untangles the plot from the slightest of clues. Author Sullivan has awesome insight into Cross; it’s a fascinating journey with a unique character.

Peeks

▪ “People have a problem with your manner. You piss them off.” (21)

▪ “It isn’t a hunch. It’s an informed calculation.” (42)

▪ He needed proof. He needed certainty. Above all, he had an indefatigable need to get it right, to have it in order. For the right person to be found and convicted. (76)

▪ MacDonald had instantaneously taken against what he perceived as an insolent, bad-mannered, above-himself arsehole of a junior officer. Nothing was really known about Asperger’s in those days – the first diagnosis wasn’t made in the UK until the mid-nineties – and so Cross just came across as a wilful oddball, or as MacDonald put it, “pain in the arse screw-up who had no place in the police.” (104)

▪ “It wasn’t a family business. It was Leonard’s dental practice, managed by Hilary before she stopped to become a full-time writer.” (150)

▪ These are the things he picked up on, which might not seem relevant to others. If something is out of character there has to be a reason for it. (183)

▪ Why had MacDonald lied about seeing Leonard? (208)