Redemption, The Servants, In the Woods

Reviews

I’ve had a lucky time in the library, coming up with three novels that stand out as unusually satisfying reads: Redemption, The Servants, and In the Woods. All three tell stories with deeper connotations, which seems to be what I’m in the mood for right now.

Redemption (2007) by Lee Jackson is a near-future, dystopic vision of an America in which the economy is near collapse — particularly believable right now — and Homeland Security’s control over civil liberty has tightened as its war on terror diverts the populace’s attention from the nation’s problems. Hitchhiker Ben Trinity, accused of funding terrorist acts but permitted to travel freely in an experimental, microchip-monitored probationary program, finds himself stranded in Redemption, Montana, by a snowstorm. When the kind but struggling owner of the local grill offers him a job as handyman and assistant, unaware of the true nature of Trinity’s crime, Trinity’s government probation officer agrees to let him stay. But secrets always come out — Trinity’s and the government’s, both.

Redemption is a well-written, taut little novel in the vein of 1984 and Brave New World. There’s no question that it’s making a point about contemporary America, and its ending may be more optimistic than it should be, but I found it refreshing to read a novel that’s trying to say something significant for a change.

The Servants (2007) by Michael Marshall Smith is a slender little volume that not many people are likely to pick up casually, so let me recommend it here.

Eleven-year-old Mark has moved from London to Brighton Beach with his mother and new stepfather, David, who recently returned from America. Taken out of school, friendless, resentful of the strange man who’s disrupted his life, and barred from his ill mother’s presence, Mark feels frustrated and alone. However, when the old lady who lives in the downstairs flat unlocks a door and reveals to him the abandoned, desolate old servants’ quarters beneath the house, Mark ventures into a surreal, malfunctioning world that begins to encroach upon his day-to-day reality. Things are falling apart both above and below the stairs, and Mark feels powerless to affect either.

The Servants is ghost story, allegory, and coming-of-age tale suitable for adults and thoughtful teens. Like Redemption, it ends on an up note that may not be entirely realistic, but it works well and makes its point.

Finally, In the Woods (2007) by Tana French skillfully weaves together two mysteries in a story that is, on the surface, a murder mystery, but that contains within itself psychological and even mythical depths that hint at darker possibilities.

In summer 1984, in the small town of Knocknaree in County Dublin, three 12-year-old children failed to return home — Germaine Elinor Rowan, Adam Robert Ryan, and Peter Joseph Savage. The ensuing hunt found one — young Adam, clinging to a tree, his shoes filled with blood, his t-shirt strangely lacerated, and his memory gone. No trace of the other two children was ever found.

“What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this — two things: I crave truth. And I lie.” (p. 4). Now, twenty years later, Adam is a detective on the Dublin Murder Squad and another child has been murdered in Knocknaree. He feels strange enough returning to the small town his family left shortly after the disappearances — only his partner knows his history there — but when Germaine’s hair clip is found next to the ancient altar stone where the new body has been laid, he is forced to wonder if the cases could be linked. Deciding to keep his link to the case secret, Adam plunges himself into the investigation, and the empty gaps in his memory become more urgent as the team investigates a suspicious family, an important archaeological dig, and motorway proposal that reeks of corrupt politics.

In the Woods is full of psychological twists and turns, and the dark woods at the heart of the story lie also in the hearts of the characters. I had a few quibbles with Adam’s characterization — sometimes I thought he was acting/thinking more like a woman than a man — but on the whole I found this to be a well-constructed, complex mystery that resonated with the deeper, primal questions of sacrifice, frienship, and family.

drupagliassotti @ May 3, 2008