Blurb
Worn down by a job he hates, and a stressful family life, middle-aged, middle-class Bradley picks up a teenage escort and commits an unspeakable crime. Now she’s tied up in his warehouse, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Max is homeless, eating from rubbish bins, sleeping rough and barely existing – known for cadging a cigarette from anyone passing, and occasionally even the footpath. Nobody really sees Max, but he has one friend, and she’s gone missing.
In order to find her, Max is going to have to call on some people from his past, and reopen wounds that have remained unhealed for a very long time – and the clock is ticking –
My Review
Thanks to Anne and Karen at Orenda Books for organising this blog tour and for sending me a copy of this book.
Vanda Symon does it again!
I sat down for a a little while this afternoon (Saturday 12th) to read some of this book and four hours later I resurfaced from Auckland’s underbelly.
The plot is fairly simple but not uninteresting. The simple plot allows the strengths of the relationships to come forward and be central to the story.
The characters were unexpected. A homeless man with a painful past, a Fijian runaway girl with amazing artistic abilities, an accountant who hates his life, and, an angry Detective Sergeant. The narrative is told from the first person present of each character, their interactions with each other and the events of the novel develop the characters and their stories.
Sorry, spoilers coming up. Although I’m not really telling you more than is in the blurb. A homeless artist, Billy, needs pain to finish her art so she takes the chance on a punter. Said punter, Bradley, is a frustrated accountant who has had a bad day. He thinks she’s laughing at him when he can’t get it up, so he knocks her out. Her friend and alley-mate, Max, is worried when she doesn’t come home for a couple of nights. Asking around doesn’t help so he forces himself to go to the police. After some difficulty and the refusal of the police to help at first, Max manages to contact Meredith and the investigation begins. Meanwhile, Billy is being tortured by Bradley, and Bradley is enjoying new-found confidence in himself. Max, with the help of his son Harry, track down Bradley and ride to the rescue, Meredith not far behind.
The narrative structure alternates between the three, then four, main characters. There aren’t any chapters as such although the use of the character’s name at the start of the next section breaks it up.
The painful confrontation between Max and Meredith as they deal with the terrible events that caused Max to fall out of his life and for Meredith to almost lose her career is a recognisable description of a panic attack and dissociation. Their difficult relationship is central to the investigation as they play off each other’s work.
The relationship between Max and Billy is paternal and mutually supportive and caring, as they try to survive on the streets, although Max is forced to deny any other form of relationship several times when he finally overcomes his anxiety and trauma to report her missing to his former colleagues.
The relationship Bradley has with everyone is exploitative, whether his domineering wife, Billy or his colleagues. He turns blame for everything back on others, although his wife, Ange, isn’t much better. They are both thoroughly awful people hiding behind a mask of middle class respectability. Bradley’s development as a character is interesting, not so much the worm who turned as the worm who got a backbone and started beating people with it.
I enjoyed the way Max rebuilt his relationship with his son and the obvious fears he has make him vulnerable. Their partnership in the last section of the book as they search for Billy is almost that of colleagues.
To be honest I was expecting the conclusion, but I was looking forward to seeing how Symon would do it. I would have been very disappointed if it had ended differently. It was very exciting.
If you liked Vanda Symon’s Sam Shepard novels (I did!) then I think you’d like this book.
Vanda Symon is a crime writer, TV presenter and radio host from Dunedin, New Zealand, and the chair of the Otago Southland branch of the New Zealand Society of Authors. The Sam Shephard series, which includes Overkill, The Ringmaster, Containment and Bound, hit number one on the New Zealand bestseller list, and has also been shortlisted for the Ngaio Marsh Award. Overkill was shortlisted for the CWA John Creasey (New Blood) Dagger.
Twitter @vandasymon, Instagram @vanda-symon, Facebook, @vandasymonauthor, http://www.vandasymon.com.
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