REVIEWS FROM LAURENCE COVEN
THE QUIET TWIN
DAN VYLETA
Bloomsbury Trade PBO 2/12
In 1919, just after World War I, Peter Kurten, a prolific serial killer, first pleaded innocent. His defense was that as a child, his father, who was a dogcatcher, allowed and encouraged his son to slaughter many of the dogs. "Kurten reminisced how he had taken to torturing dogs... he'd fed them sausage filled with nails, watched them bleed to death from the inside." He was sentenced to death by guillotine and his brain dissected for study by scientists.
If this sounds extremely grim, it is a reliable indicator to this intriguing, but sometimes repulsive novel as a whole. Set primarily in Austria in 1939, just as the Nazis are beginning their quest for world domination, the prose is dense and sometimes difficult, with a minimum of dialogue. Although the copyright page indicated this is the first U.S. edition, there is no indication that it is translated from the German, though it powerfully evokes both the heaviness of that language and the shadowy oppression of the time in which it set.
Now, in 1939 Austria, the Kurten crimes seem to be repeating themselves. A dog is slaughtered and several murders ascribed to the same serial killer are happening again.
The plot centers in a building with a courtyard and the motley collection of residents who occupy the flats. Primarily there is Zuzka, an adolescent girl on the verge of womanhood, who is always questing for attention, a common symptom of girls her age. Basically, for the most part feigning illness, she gets her sycophantic housekeeper, Frau Vesalius, to call in another courtyard resident, Doctor Beer. Beer, though clearly attracted to Zuzka, is very circumspect and careful when treating her. He seems like a kindly, intelligent medical man.
Another resident in the building is Zuzka's uncle and guardian. It is his dog whose throat has been slashed.
Zuzka's main activity is constantly peering out the window, seeing into windows of the other courtyard flats. The queerest object of this activity is a man across the way who has lots of make-up on his face and is constantly parading nude in front of his window. Quite an object of fascinating interest for a girl Zuzka's age. If this is reminiscent of Hitchcock's "Rear Window" the parallel is very justified, only without the whimsy and the romance of that cinema masterpiece, (as well as the work by Cornell Woolrich, on which the movie is based.)
Zuzka is not only intrigued by the man but also suspicious, certainly justifiably. She decides on a bold course of action. With her young girl friend as look out, she waits until she's sure the man is gone, and trickily maneuvers the building manager to give her his keys. She tries to find the right key to open the apartment door, and it seems like forever until she finds it and gets the door open. This is the type of moment of suspense that is often quite skillfully created by Vyleta in this novel.
Inside the apartment she finds the leg of a woman protruding in another of the flat's room. The woman is nude and apparently dead with many suspicious marks on her back. But she is alive. Completely freaked, Zuzka has her young friend summon Doctor Beer.
He fails to understand the young girl's story for what seems an interminable amount of time. Will the strange man return at any moment? More suspense.
Finally Beer gets to the apartment. Examining the woman he is at first appalled. He finds she cannot speak, but can communicate in other ways. Upon closer look, he finds that, oddly, her teeth have been meticulously cared for.
What can possibly be happening here? Beer decides to wait for the man to return, which takes an interminably long time. Finally, the man comes back. He is as menacing as one could want. Well, the woman is the Silent Twin. And the menacing man has seemingly been caring for her to the best to his ability. His face is covered with the white make-up. Most bizarrely, the man turns out to be of all things, a working mime! But does that mean he is not the murderer? Or does it mean it's even more likely, for who in their right mind would ever trust or not be terrified by a damn Mime!
So after all, there is some very twisted, strange humor. There are certainly many more plot twists to come. Due to the darkness and density of prose, this book will not be for everyone, but if the reader can stay focused on it, he will find himself well rewarded. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
INTERLOCK
GARY ALEXANDER
Five Star March, 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4328-2575-1
I'm trying to write this on a computer and word processor I'm completely unfamiliar with, because my computer is dead. But in a way that's okay, because I feel pretty unfamiliar with this book I'm reviewing.
It seems to want to be a lot of things: A humorous mystery, an art scam tale, a chase for the treasure, and a weird sort of thriller. The latest in the Buster Hightower mystery series involves a really valuable painting called Interlock. It is the masterpiece of a recently deceased, drunken, brilliant artist who only left three paintings extant. And apparently everyone wants this one.
And "apparently" is a good word. Nothing is for certain in this novel. Who stole the painting? Who wants it and why? Where is it? And other questions as well, to which it often appears the author himself doesn't know the answer, or wants to make sure the reader doesn't know; at which he definitely succeeds. There are some things which simply don't make sense.
Anyway, Buster is a sixty-something Oregon semi-pro comedian who works bowling alleys and Bar-Mitzvahs. He's often not too funny. Unfortunately, Alexander feels that to imprint this on us he has to give us several pages of his not-so-good comedy routines. His seventy-something older brother, Butch, is apparently the one who stole the painting to pay off some monstrous gambling debts. Though how he was planning to turn the
painting into cash is extremely fuzzy. So Butch gets hold of his brother Buster, and his Amazon-like wife Carla to help him out. It's not clear exactly why, because he plays completely coy with them as to where the painting is, and even if he actually stole it. Then after enlisting their aide, he escapes them by soaping up and squeezing thru a tiny motel window.
If this is confusing you, welcome to the club.
Among the others hot on the hunt for the painting are a Russian agent representing Russian mob billionaires who either actually have bought the painting or want to steal it. Their agent is a bizarre spy-like character who
speaks in a terrible Russian accent, even when he's just thinking. Larrinov, the agent, want to get the painting to satisfy his employers who sadistically kill those involved to satisfy weird sex drives. But if this guy is supposed to be scary, he's too ridiculous a character to succeed. Rather than a dangerous ex-KGBer, he comes off more like Boris Badinov from the "Bullwinkle" show.
Also on the chase is this boyishly handsome, but truly vicious, agent for the insurance company who's an expert on finding things. Well he does manage to find Buster and Carla, and Butch, and convince them with his charisma to collaborate with him.
Suddenly the painting apparently shows up in a touristy knick-knack antique store owned by a young couple whose marriage is on the rocks. But that painting turns out, apparently, to be a fake.
There may be too many twists in this "mystery" novel. A lot don't make sense even when explained. Among the most superfluous things thrown into this book (according to your taste) are a bunch of Butch's recipes for sixty-something overweight rednecks who want to die quickly.
INTERLOCK is more of a wacky funhouse which throws you off base just to throw you off base than a legitimate work of suspense, and I can't say it succeeds as a mystery novel, but the one thing about funhouses is that they do supply fun.