Tag Archives: Fiction

Review | Good as Dead, Mark Billingham

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Shop owner Akhtar takes police officer Helen Weeks and a civilian hostage. His demand: that DI Tom Thorne investigate the apparent suicide of his son in prison, which Akhtar believes is a murder. Mark Billingham’s Good as Dead is a fast-paced mystery and an exciting read. It’s my first Tom Thorne book, as well as the first time I’ve heard of the Thorne TV series. I hope the TV show will be aired in Canada; it looks really interesting.

I had zero sympathy for Akhtar. I’m sure that’s partly because I just finished the deeply disturbing Into the Darkest Corner, and because of the recent real-life body parts case and Eaton centre shooting, all of which make me especially angry at people who use violence to ruin the lives of innocents. So Akhtar believes his son was murdered, and that the justice system failed his family. That in no way justifies, to any extent, his threatening the lives of two innocent people. While I understand that Thorne’s race to find out the truth about Akhtar’s son is motivated by his desire to see the hostages safe, a part of me hoped that it would turn out that the son had committed suicide after all, and that Akhtar realizes how pointless his drama is.

To Billingham’s credit, he also holds back on whatever sympathy he has for Akhtar. Rather, he emphasizes Helen’s concern over her one year old son, and the other hostage’s hysterical focus on his missing a meeting regarding his promotion at work. Even when Helen chooses to hide information from the police trying to rescue her, it’s not because of Stockholm syndrome, but rather because she wants to survive to see her baby again. Her decision seemed more like a convenient dramatic device to keep the story going rather than the smart choice, but I like that Billingham explained her reasoning behind it. I also like the scenes where Akhtar’s wife confronts him — Thorne reasons that in any couple in crisis, at least one of them has to remain strong. In the case of Akhtar’s wife, she couldn’t afford to fall apart, because someone has to take care of the other kids in the family. I like her as a character, and felt sorry for what she must be going through, first with her son, and now with her husband.

I have no sympathy for Akhtar, but his son did get a pretty raw deal. Billingham takes us into the son’s life, and the real reasons behind his imprisonment. It’s not a pretty story, and Billingham reveals a harsh, tragic type of party scene, where it’s so easy for boys like Akhtar’s son to get in way over their heads.

Good as Dead is a pretty solid, entertaining thriller. Nothing that particularly made me want to read all the other Tom Thorne novels, but definitely a good read for the weekend or an afternoon at the beach.

Review | Into the Darkest Corner, Elizabeth Haynes

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Quite possibly one of the worst things about being the victim of a crime is feeling judged yourself. It’s perfectly natural to think of your own actions and agonize over how you could have prevented the crime, or how, if circumstances were different, you might’ve escaped it altogether. Among the most empowering things, therefore, for a victim of crime to hear, apart from that the perpetrator has been caught, are “You’re not alone” and “It’s not your fault.” Some are fortunate enough to learn that right away, others need a bit more time. But what if you don’t hear that at all? What if the people you trust the most tell you that you are at fault, that in fact, you are lying and not a victim of crime at all? When Catherine Bailey, the heroine of Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner, calls herself “such a fool” for not having escaped an abusive relationship with Lee when she had the chance, I wanted to hug her and tell her not to blame herself. When she thinks about how her parents’ death led to her going to bars, flirting with strangers and eventually meeting Lee, I wanted to tell her that it’s useless to dwell on the what if’s, that in fact, her anger should be towards Lee and not towards herself or her past. I wanted to be the friend she so clearly needed.

Into the Darkest Corner is a difficult book to read, and I mean that as a testament to how amazing it is. Haynes has crafted a terrifying, emotional, claustrophobic story of abuse. My copy (photo on the left) is filed with Post-It notes and marginal scribbles, mostly comments like “Argh! You liar!” referring to Lee. Rarely have I marked up a book so much — Darkest Corner has provoked that much from me.

I detested Lee from the very beginning. The novel opens with Lee’s trial in 2005, where he testifies that Catherine was an emotionally unbalanced girlfriend whose obsessive jealousy caused him to snap and punch her — the “first time [he’d] ever hit a woman,” and allegedly an act of self-defense. This may be because I already knew from the book’s back cover that Lee was the jealous one with a “darker side,” but this scene just made me sick. How dare this man not just beat up his girlfriend but now try to paint her as the one at fault?

The novel is structured so that the story of Catherine and Lee’s developing relationship in 2003 (pre-trial) is told in alongside (in alternating scenes) the story of Catherine in 2007 (post-trial). It took me a while to get into this structure, mostly because I felt I already knew how the 2003 storyline was going to turn out, and I wanted to get on with the rest of the story. I soon found myself liking Haynes’ choice of structure however — the scenes of Catherine being carefree and flirting with the handsome, mysterious Lee are especially heart-wrenching when contrasted with the perennially frightened Catherine in 2007, who suffers from OCD and practically has to be dragged to the office Christmas party.

Even when Catherine was really in love with Lee, I never found him attractive. There was a major red flag from the beginning — Lee’s secrecy about his job — though I guess I could see how that would have a dark, brooding stranger type appeal. I do wish I saw a bit more of Lee’s charming side, just so I can understand how Catherine could have fallen so hard, and how her friends could have been so won over.

I have rarely detested a character as much as I do Lee. He’s just creepy and controlling. For example, he switches around the knives and forks in Catherine’s kitchen drawer. When Catherine demands to know why he did it, he replies, “I just wanted you to know I was looking out for you.” Catherine admits she feels uncomfortable without knowing why, and that was one point when I wanted to just yell at her — how can you not know why that creeps you out? Talk about the heebie-jeebies! To Catherine’s credit, she does ask him not to do it again instead of just letting it alone.

Haynes does an amazing job of putting us in Catherine’s frame of mind. It was terrifying to see Lee’s controlling tendencies escalate, to the point that even when Catherine realizes how much she needs to escape this relationship, it’s already too late. Several times in the margins, I’ve written “how to escape?” The story at times felt claustrophobic — Catherine’s experience of being trapped by Lee felt so real that even I, who knew he’d be convicted in 2005, saw no way out.

In contrast to Lee is Stuart, Catherine’s neighbour in 2007, who is a psychologist and who wants to help her deal with her OCD. I was initially put off when he tells her she has OCD and asks if she’s gotten any help for it. I knew he was trying to be helpful, but I also wanted her to tell him it was none of his business. Still, she does need help, and I like how Haynes balances out Catherine’s wariness of Stuart with her desire to get better. Stuart gradually grew on me — I love how, despite his attraction to Catherine, he is first and foremost a friend. I kept wishing that he wouldn’t turn out to have some hidden agenda, that he really is as nice a guy as he seems. Lee is such a horrible, manipulative person, and the way he destroys Catherine is painstakingly, painfully methodical. Because Catherine’s relationship with Stuart unfolds in the book alongside her experiences with Lee, it is difficult to allow ourselves to trust Stuart, just as it must have been for Catherine as well.

Darkest Corner has been compared to S.J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep. Watson even blurbs Darkest Corner, calling it “intense, gripping and utterly unputdownable.” I am a huge fan of Before I Go to Sleep — I found it, quite literally, “unputdownable,” and it kept me up all night. Its premise of not knowing who you really area is terrifying.

I found Into the Darkest Corner difficult to put down as well, but more than that, I found it difficult to read. Catherine’s story gets into you, in a way the very best books — of any genre — do. Catherine battles not just Lee the person but, perhaps more difficult, Lee the memory, which haunts her even after Lee is behind bars. I cheered every time Catherine fought back. I wanted her to win, to beat Lee once and for all and finally get on with her life, even though I knew that no matter what, the scars left by her experiences will never fully go away. Catherine’s story feels real, ever last terrifying, tragic bit of it, and kudos to Haynes for not holding back on such a difficult subject. Brilliant book, one that will stay with you long after you’ve finished reading.

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Thank you to Harper Collins Canada for an ARC of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Review | The Absolutist, John Boyne

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It takes great courage to fight for your country, but sometimes it takes even greater courage to refuse to fight. An absolutist, according to Corporal Wells, a character in John Boyne’s The Absolutist, goes “one step beyond conscientiously objecting.” I’ve heard of conscientious objectors — conscripted soldiers who are morally opposed to fighting in a war, and therefore opt to serve their country is less violent ways, i.e. working in hospitals. An absolutist, on the other hand, Wells says, is “at the far end of the spectrum… He won’t do anything at all to further the war effort. Won’t fight, won’t help those who are fighting, won’t work in a hospital or come to the aid of the wounded.”

A long time soldier, Wells considers absolutism as “cowardice on the most extreme level,” and on one hand, it’s easy to see where he’s coming from. Here are men risking their lives every day to fight the Great War (World War I, before the world even dared consider the possibility of a World War II) and keep their country safe — it’s completely understandable that they would resent those who refuse to fight and therefore stay away from enemy fire. On the other hand, for someone who truly believes that anything to do with the war is immoral, there is also much courage in being able to look at your fellow soldiers, all of whom are pressuring you to join in, and just say no.

When I first read the publisher’s description of The Absolutist, which says that a soldier, Tristan, has a secret he is working up the courage to confess to the sister of his fellow soldier Will, I thought that the big secret was going to be that Tristan and Will have a romantic relationship. (I’m not posting a spoiler one way or the other; this is just what I guessed would happen from the publisher’s description.) The story, after all, was set at a time when there was still a social stigma against homosexuality (sadly, that stigma still hasn’t been completely eradicated). Boyne does touch on the difficulties of being in love with a fellow soldier of the same sex, and I love how faithful he is to the language of the era. Delicate rather than overt, much like E.M. Forster’s suggestion of same-sex romance in A Passage to India, Boyne’s writing emphasizes how much Tristan has to hide his sexuality, even as other characters are free to broadcast their homophobia.

However, The Absolutist shows that there are much more dangerous confessions than coming out as gay. While being gay is seen by the soldiers in the novel as an object of ridicule, being an absolutist is viewed as a betrayal. Will is conscripted into the army and from the very beginning, launches formal proceedings to be recognized as an absolutist and released from military duty. There’s something appealing about his being so honest about his intentions, especially in the world of confusion and chaos of the Great War. And when he witnesses something so terrible he demands justice, you realize how heroic he is.

Yet the best thing about Boyne’s writing is that he offers no easy answers. While we applaud Will’s unwavering morality, Boyne also immerses us in the atmosphere of horror and fear that the other soldiers endure. In one scene, Tristan is talking to a fellow soldier when “I am immediately rendered blind by what feels like a bucket of hot mucus being chucked in my face.” The other soldier has just been shot in the head, “one eye completely gone — somewhere on my person, I suspect — the other hanging uselessly from its socket.” Just reading that made me shudder — I don’t even want to imagine how it would feel to live it day after day after day. How can I blame the soldiers who resented Will refusing to take part in any aspect of the war effort? Yet how can I accept how horribly they in turn reacted to Will’s objection?

What is cowardice? What is heroism? When you’re down in the trenches, should your loyalty be to an idea or to people? Where is the line between understanding someone and excusing his behaviour? The Absolutist raises more questions than it answers, and creates a web of morality that is as ambivalent as it is realistic. And the moment when we learn Tristan’s secret — and his motivation behind it — is, for me, probably the most heart wrenching scenes in the novel. A powerful ending to a very complex tale.