As a long-time fan of author James Sallis, I am excited to see how this novel “plays,” now that it has just been released as a film, a first for Sallis. A novelist who writes some of the most compressed novels ever, with big stories conveyed in a few perfect word choices, absolutely right images, and terse but revelatory dialogue, Sallis says more in one sentence than most other authors say in a page or two. His novels are the darkest of the dark, and the lives of his damaged characters are often the messiest of the messy, but his style is powerful and exhilarating despite the misery. In Drive, a quintessentially minimalist novel, a main character known only as “Driver” works as a stunt man by day and as the driver of getaway cars at night. Purely pragmatic and living only in the moment, he has no real dreams and no long-term goals, the result of his violent childhood, which was not a childhood at all. Opening dramatically with Driver leaning against a wall in a Motel 6 room, his arm wounded so badly it is useless, with three dead bodies around him, the novel repeats these images like a bizarre refrain throughout, as the background for this scene and the action which follows are revealed. In terse prose, as efficient in conveying information as Driver is in killing those who threaten him, Sallis follows Driver as he moves between Los Angeles and Phoenix, doing jobs.
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Once again, Deon Meyer creates a vivid and sometimes frightening look at life in contemporary South Africa, which serves as the background for a real can’t-put-it-downer of a thriller. In the course of his six previous novels, each of which has been more exciting than the previous one, he has continued to expand his plotting and characters. This is his most complex and intricate novel yet, filled with twists and ironies and a series of surprises in the conclusion that makes it all work. Unlike most of his previous novels, however, this one is divided into four separate sections, each of which develops independently from the others, like individual novellas, with little to connect them until late in the novel. What the reader knows from the outset is that South Africa’s Presidential Intelligence Agency (PIA) has uncovered a plot which suggests that militant Muslims are planning a takeover of the country with the aid of violent gangs and disaffected youth from the poorest neighborhoods of Capetown. Since the PIA itself is threatened with the prospect of its absorption into a national super-intelligence agency, they are sometimes overly zealous in promoting their own interests.
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As close to perfect as a mystery can get, Denmark’s #1 crime writer, Award-winning author Jussi Adler-Olsen’s first novel to be translated into English has something that will entertain everyone. Very exciting with a unique plot, and filled with characters with whom the reader will identify, the novel is complex but not so dependent on odd details that the reader gets lost in complications, genuinely heart breaking in places without being sentimental, warm, and often very funny, to top it off. As fun to read as the novel is, Adler-Olsen also has something to say about contemporary life, creating an underlying thematic structure which carries a powerful kick as the novel comes to its conclusion. Who could want more than that? The first of his four Department Q novels to be translated into English, this is the beginning of a remarkable new series which has sold over a million copies in Denmark, which has a total population of only 5.5 million people.
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The structure of a folk song, as author Monika Fagerholm describes it here, explains the overall structure of this novel, with many repetitions through time and space, through past and present, and through new generations and old. Points of view constantly change among the many characters as the chronology moves between 1969 and 2012 and back. Bits of information are provided about one character in one section at one moment in time, contradicted in another section, and denied completely in yet another. Different characters go to the same places at different times and perform the same actions, but the results may be described differently, and may actually be different, depending on who is telling the story. If this sounds complex, it is. Finnish author Monika Fagerholm challenges the very nature of story telling in this novel, which has, at its heart, a series of dark mysteries which echo through more than one generation.
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It is nearly impossible to try to describe the power of James Sallis’s writing to someone who has never read any of his books or who has never experienced a “mystery” which is also a breathtaking and complete literary experience. I was so overwhelmed by this heart-stopping novel, his best one yet, that I had to stop in the middle for a breather overnight, and I am still having difficulty coming back to earth to write this review. Though the novel “out-noirs” almost every “noir” novel I have ever imagined with its sad and desperate characters trying to cope with the miseries fate has dealt them, Sallis’s characters never expect life to be any different. All they want is to be able to cope with the here and now. The Killer is Dying is an impressionistic novel focusing on three main characters, and the reader comes to know these characters through a series of descriptive episodes in which the characters are not initially identified. Gradually, one comes to recognize the different points of view from references to details connected with a particular character. In a literary tour de force, none of these characters are associated directly with each other. They live parallel, not interconnected lives, illustrating stylistically the solitary nature of their lives. Sallis includes more information in fewer words than almost any other writer I have ever found. His compressed prose is on the level shown by Hemingway’s in his short stories, and his ability to evoke emotions is superior. Powerful, thoughtful, and often heart-breaking, the novel reflects a kind of honesty that is rare in fiction.
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