In 1935, Key West is about to be hit by a hurricane. Cunning crime writer Hector Lassiter casually knocks back mojitos, and tricks a beautiful girl into coming home with him by hiring a guy to make her think she’s in danger. It works. Score one for Hector.
But life quickly gets much harder for him in TOROS & TORSOS, Craig McDonald’s follow-up to HEAD GAMES. While he and Rachel Harper bide their time as the harsh weather approaches, word spreads of a woman being murdered nearby. What makes the crime noteworthy is its brutality: The corpse has been savagely hollowed out, with gears and cogs and flywheels placed inside her.
After Rachel expresses dismay at the disappearance of a friend of hers, things get more personal when more bodies are discovered. Hector and his best bud — fellow scribe Ernest Hemingway — play makeshift detectives to try and find out who’s behind these bizarre killings, as the latest round of victims turns up stuffed with pieces of metal or wilted roses.
See, the killer is creating art, however macabre, by shaping his victims into pieces that resemble surrealist works, whether the paintings of Salvador Dalí or the photographs of Man Ray. That’s an excellent hook for a murder mystery … if only McDonald had stuck to it.
Roughly a quarter into TOROS, a tragic act occurs, and the story jumps ahead two years. Now in Spain, Hector is believed by everyone to be a spy, even by Hemingway. In a move that screams Hitchcock, a dopplegänger for Rachel turns up in Hector’s life; she’s Rachel’s sister, Alva, and lucky for Hector, every bit as willing to bed him right away. Meanwhile, the authorities “hire” Hector to take care of the killer.
Then a little more than halfway through, the book leaps ahead to 1947 Hollywood, where Hector’s been hired as a script consultant by Orson Welles. Actress Rita Hayworth takes to Hector and starts getting some threatening letters about “fucking with art.” And again — you knew this was coming, didn’t you? — McDonald’s time machine drops us in 1959 for the final 50ish pages (1961 epilogue excepted) to sorta kinda tie it all together and wrap stuff up.
It’s ambitious and daring for McDonald to stretch his tale across two and a half decades, but in doing so, he pulls too far, and the narrative thread snaps. Interest in the mystery unravels when the novel gets saddled with too many subplots, too many entanglements, too many turns. Had it stayed put to one era, one island, the novel would be more conventional, yes, but also more enjoyable.
That said, the author excels at working in the noir style. Especially in the first quarter in Key West, you can taste the liquor, smell the sweat and feel the tension as he more than capably describes the area — one tailor-made for this kind of tale. He’s a good writer who can depict animal brutality as well as animal sexuality; it’s just that this time, the plot is overplotted, leaving the core underserved. —Rod Lott
“Rachel pushed hard against him, groaning loudly and causing the headboard to squeak as her sweaty palms gripped the bars for purchase — seeking counter leverage to his thrusts. He was above her, propping himself up off her body so he could see her better, his weight on his hands as he plunged into her, over and over.”
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