Bones by Jan Burke
What did it win?
Edgar Award 2000
What's it all about?
A serial killer stalks a newspaper reporter.
Was it really any good?
Only as an example of the state of today's pulp, which is nothing to be happy
about.
More than a book we have read many times before - though it is also that - Bones
is a book we have seen many times before. The superhuman serial killer
(this one's name is Nicholas Parrish) has become one of the most common
archetypes in today's entertainment industry. Enough is enough!
Does anyone remember where these psychos first came from? I suppose their
most notorious predecessor is Hannibal Lector. Even the cover
of the paperback edition of Bones is meant to recall The Silence of
the Lambs, with a picture of a moth
superimposed over a pair of crossed bones. (It seems not to matter that the name
of the "Moth" in the novel is purely metaphorical.) But Hannibal
himself may have only been an upscale, intellectual version of the seemingly immortal slasher psychos of
80s cinema.
Whatever his pedigree, my main complaint about the use of a serial killer in mystery
fiction is the fact that serial killers are without rational motivation. The
reason they kill people is because they are crazy. When I read a mystery novel -
or any crime fiction - the motivation for the crime is what interests me the
most. It's the main reason such an otherwise outdated school of writing as
Naturalism still has the power it does. Getting inside a character is one of the things fiction
has always done best, and it
is a shame to see so many of today's authors falling back on what have become
all-too-familiar Hollywood caricatures.
The following is typical of the discussion we get of motivation in the
book:
"David," Andy said, "you've been around this type of guy
before. Why do you think Parrish did that?"
"There could be any number of explanations," David said, "but if
you're trying to make any real sense of it, well, that's something for a
forensic psychologist to tackle."
"He's insane," Andy said.
"Not by the legal definition," David said. "He was found
competent to stand trial."
Not only is this singularly unhelpful, it also shows a questionable
understanding of the law. The "legal definition" of criminal insanity
involves quite different considerations than the test of whether an accused is
competent to stand trial. We might expect someone in the business to know
better.
(While I'm on the topic of what motivates serial killers, I might point out
the way Burke's Nicholas Parrish is influenced by the media. Though his
character is never presented in any depth, it does seem as though
he is some kind of copy-cat, even signing books out of the library on "his
brethren." The reason this is interesting is because it seems to assume what most people who defend this kind of entertainment always deny: that
the media has any influence on violent behaviour in society.)
Of course, when writing a mystery novel the absence of motivation becomes a big
problem. How are we supposed to figure out whodunnit when there is no reason for
it being done in the first place? Indeed, why even bother trying? I don't
want to say that classic detective fiction is the only way to go, but if the
current crop of Edgar winners is any indication (see my review of Cimarron
Rose for an earlier complaint) then it seems pretty clear that mystery
has been supplanted as a genre by the "suspense thriller."
But all of this is digression. Was the book itself any good?
It is an
effective page-turner, though instantly forgettable. The real mystery, the
identity of Parrish's accomplice, should be pretty obvious by about halfway
through (at least that's when I had it figured it out, and I'm no super-sleuth).
The feisty heroine is another stereotype (yes, we know a strong woman can take
on these predators, we've seen Silence of the Lambs, we've seen Kiss
the Girls), and as for Nicholas Parrish . . . well, what can we say about a
guy who laughs "uproariously" when he calls the decapitated corpse of
a woman he has packed in his freezer a "cold fish," and then excuses
himself for being a boy "trying to get a head!"
Great material.
Despite being so derivative, the book takes itself surprisingly seriously at
times, especially with all of the references to von
Eschenbach's Parzifal that are never explained. And there are
elements of the plot that remain unconvincing. The escape of Nicholas Parrish, instead of
making him appear to be a master criminal ("some combination of Houdini and the
Terminator"), struck me as being entirely the result of
dumb luck. And the finale - a battle on the rooftop of a tall building while a
helicopter circles overhead - is Hollywood pure and simple.
But then, I guess pretty much everything is now.
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