Say Goodbye
Full disclosure: I only read Lisa Gardner’s SAY GOODBYE because of the spiders.
When it comes to women writing crime fiction, I generally shy away because many have a tendency to weigh an element of romance as heavily as the thriller aspects. Luckily, Gardner’s heroine — FBI agent Kimberly Quincy — is married and deep into a pregnancy, so one doesn’t have to worry about a single bodice being ripped. Big, hairy tarantulas, however, is a major cause for concern.
The serial killer at work in the novel has a thing for spiders — as in, he raises them and even gets off on letting them crawl all over the prostitutes he hires … and kills.
He calls himself Dinchara — that’s an anagram for “arachnid,” see — and he doesn’t even come to the authorities’ attention until a hooker regularly hired by him for actual sex (he likes to let his creepy crawlers watch) seeks police protection from him. That’s when the feds start connecting the dots on a string of disappearing call girls.
Quincy wants to save this girl from her miserable life, but her husband’s not so keen on the idea because of the amount of danger involved. After all, it’s no longer just her own life she’s putting at risk, but that of their unborn child. Thrillers being thrillers, you can guess which route Quincy chooses to take.
Gardner’s novel is primarily a procedural, but its kicks lie strictly with Dinchara and his eight-legged freaks. Severe arachnophobes will squirm throughout, and be unable to shake several scenes from their memories, provided they’re able to get through them at all.
Two things slow down the otherwise well-paced mystery. The first is a subplot involving a 90-year-old woman who lives alone. Her story is interesting, but exactly how she fits into the whole thing is kept secret for too long. Similarly, continuous first-person observations from someone on the evil side of things are confusing — partly because we’re not sure from whose viewpoint they stem and whether they’re taking place in the past or the present.
Eventually, it becomes clear, but when your mind tries to piece things together to form a visual picture as you read, it’s frustrating to see Gardner insist on holding these cards to her chest when revealing them would spoil or detract from nothing. Besides, there are plenty of other riddles within SAY GOODBYE that you’re quite content to have remain mysterious as long as Gardner wants. —Rod Lott
I have a feeling you’re really going to regret that crack about women crime writers, but I must admit that all those cozies about cats and knitting and god only knows what have often made me feel much the same way. But there are plenty of women who not only write real crime novels, they write really good ones. There are too many to list, but there’s one relative newcomer who really deserves your attention: Tana French. Her first, “In the Woods” won the Edgar for Best First Novel, and certainly deserved it. Her second, “The Likeness”, is almost as good. She’s the real deal. Give her a try.
It’s not meant to be a crack — just an observation based on experience. And I don’t think that saying so is to knock their talent — it’s just that the romance-heavy approach doesn’t line up with the kinds of things I look for in a novel. That very issue was discussed in Patrick Anderson’s terrific nonfiction book THE TRIUMPH OF THE THRILLER. Male authors don’t hit the romance hard all that often, but I hate when they do. I’m not referring to the Tana Frenchs of the world, and incidentally, reviewer Mark Rose will be covering her soon.
Sounds creepy! I have a few of this authors books but haven’t gotten around to reading any of them yet.