The book follows Lauren Medina, a young homicide detective, burdened with past trauma. Medina struggles with the mysterious murder of her sister when they were both children, and the gaps in her memory that surround it. She’s built a life around those gaps, and is driven to try and bring justice to other victims, to make the unknown more visible. Medina is closed in on herself, pushing people away because she thinks they’re going to be hurt if they stick too close to her. And there’s always the possibility that she may be right about that. Pelayo draws her protagonist with a fine brush, letting us see the wounds and scars that have closed her up, the marriage on the edge, or past the edge, of failure. The desire to prevent harm, and the obsession it brings that may be past the border of healthy. Medina is a woman on the brink of crisis, following ghosts,snatching victories where she can while fuelled by good coffee and bad food.
The story also explores her relationships, both old and new. There’s the aforementioned marriage, but also a look into the family that shaped her even as it fractured. The way her father, also a police officer, was drawn into a morass of cases, never able to stop working, something Medina mirrors - though her memories of him are typically warm and understanding. THe way her maternal figures were absent or less than approving. It shapes her, this dynamic - and you see that in her interactions. You see it in the way she eyes her partner with suspicion, and in the way that working with her father’s old partner as a mentor lets her relax herself, just a little. Pelayo has wound her protagonist almost as tight as she can go, and the question is perhaps where she’ll put all that energy when she unravels.
There’s other characters of course, other views. I won’t spoil it, but I will say that there’s some portrayals here of both innocents and killers that ring true. Some are delightfully creepy, each turn of the page giving us the mundane, obscurely familiar roots of dissatisfaction that lead to murder. You can read these pages and feel the sad, petty reality of killers - even as the supernatural element spreads through the story like ripples in a pond. There’s something behind the killers, behind the murders, a force of nature, or something else, but it slithers and strides behind a façade of normality. There’s an honesty to the terror, a rawness to it, that feels human in the same way that the grubby details of the crimes, the motives, do too.
Speaking of facades of normality: This is very much a book set in Chicago. If the name didn’t give it away, the lavish descriptions and interjections on the history and folklore of the city certainly will. I thought they were great, honestly, as someone who doesn’t know much about the city; they gave it a depth, a grace and shadow that I wouldn’t have felt otherwise. That said, if you’re not here for a love letter to the Windy City, you might find the digressions less helpful. Personally, I enjoyed them - they made the city feel alive, like another character rather than a stage to be played upon. And the history of Chicago, even that small portion explored here, is a dark one on occasion.
There’s some nice twists and turns here, and the story takes some unexpected pivots as it gets where it’s going, exploring the Pied Piper myth in a more modern setting, exploring a deal where the price is the lives of children, drawn into the depths and never seen again. This is a modern fairy tale, but one explicitly in the mode of Grimm rather than Disney - a fairly tale where rewards are uncertain, and costs can be both high and gruesome.
Is it a good story? In short: hell yes. If you find the nights drawing in a bit, and you want to feel that chill down your spine, then this is the book for you.
No comments:
Post a Comment