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CORRIDOR OF MYSTERY |
DARK
CORRIDORS VOL. 2, No. 23 |
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LAURIE R. King's FOLLY |
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It's King's most mature novel yet;
Literature with a cloak of mystery
By
RON MILLER
of TheColumnists.com
EVER
SINCE Raymond Chandler began to steer the mystery genre toward
the heady territory of serious literature in the late 1930s,
more and more profoundly intelligent and gifted writers have
been drawn to the field, helping bring it a deep respect that
it lacked in the salad days of Conan Doyle and Agatha Christie,
who often were dismissed by literary critics as just mystery
writers.
One of the most respected is Laurie R. King, who has been taken
seriously ever since the flurry of awards and critical excitement
for her first novel, "A
Grave Talent."
I've been reading King only since the mid-90s, but I've read
all her novels in sequence and can tell you this is a master
at work, growing ever more sure of her art--or craft, if you
prefer--with each new book.
King has two extraordinary series going--the first featuring San Francisco police detective Kate Martinelli, the second built around Mary Russell, the apprentice to and now the wife of the great detective Sherlock Holmes. But King now seems poised on taking new, more challenging paths with novels that can stand alone as both crackling contemporary mysteries--and works of serious character-based fiction.
Her latest, "Folly" (Bantam, $23.95), is an exceptional novel, giving us a strong portrait of a woman verging on a total psychological meltdown, struggling to rebuild herself from the ground up--just as she symbolically works to rebuild the ruined home of her great-uncle on a lonely, remote island off the coast of Washington state.
Often mysteries are fashioned around a central character who's little more than a framework for all the familiar detective fiction cliches. In contrast, King's heroes all come fully-formed, with complex personalities, and it isn't always easy to predict where they're going to wind up in the course of events. Rae Newborn, the 52-year-old heroine of "Folly," is a perfect example. In somebody else's novel, she might not have made it through the first four or five chapters because she seems about ready to unravel before your eyes.
An acclaimed wood-working artist, Rae nearly self-disintegrates when she's seriously injured in an auto accident that kills her husband and young daughter. Trying to cope with the collapse of her perfect life, Rae teeters on the brink of mental breakdown. Then, at her most vulnerable time, she's nearly pushed over the edge when she's beaten and raped by a pair of mysterious creeps.
When we first meet her, Rae has emerged from therapy that has set her on the road to recovery. She feels incapable of going on with her creative wood sculpture, but chooses instead to tackle a mammoth project she hopes will so focus her attention that she won't lapse into near-hysteria over the "watchers" she imagines are lurking everywhere. The project is the restoration of the large wooden house her great-uncle built between two stone towers on Sanctuary, an island in the San Juans off the Washington coastline. Her great-uncle Desmond was considered a madman by many, which is why they gave his island retreat the nickname "Folly."
The longer she works on rebuilding the fire-gutted house, the more Rae begins to realize she and her mysterious great-uncle must have been soulmates. He had returned from World War I a broken man and, much like Rae, had tackled the building of the house as a form of personal therapy.
But will she meet the same fate as Desmond, who disappeared one day and was never seen again? And what exactly was that fate? Rae begins to wonder as she reads through her great-uncle's diary, which ended abruptly...almost as if he was interrupted right in the middle of writing what would be his final entry.
King's involving story is much more than just a Robinson Crusoe-like saga of a woman trying to survive alone on the remote island. It deals very pointedly with contemporary family relationships. Rae is estranged from Tamara, her adult daughter by her first husband--and despises Tamara's shifty husband, Don, who seems intent on seizing Rae's considerable wealth by proving that her decision to live like a hermit on the island is evidence that she's too unstable to manage her own finances.
Rae's only ally within her family is her granddaughter, teenage Petra, who wants to come stay with Rae on the island. But she does begin to collect other allies among the people who live in the island chain, especially the local sheriff, who starts out being concerned about her welfare, then begins to fall in love with her.
King deftly creates a credible environment for her drama. Even though her island is mythical, it's clear King knows the San Juan Islands well and the background is filled in with real places that will be familiar to those who visit the area frequently.
Though much of "Folly" is psychological drama, concerned mostly with Rae's search for personal redemption, King very subtly draws a cloak of mystery around the proceedings. There's the faint suggestion that someone is hiding from Rae on the island--or is it just her fear of "watchers" coming out again? There also are the reports of missing girls from nearby islands and rumors that somebody has been trying to gather information about Rae from people who come in contact with her from time to time.
This all leads to a stirring series of events--including disclosures about what really happened to great-uncle Desmond--and an edge-of-your-seat finale when Rae realizes she has to use all the resources at her command to save herself and her granddaughter from a stunning threat to their lives.
King certainly doesn't depart the mystery genre totally in "Folly," but this book is yet another demonstration that today's very best mystery writers are among the very best fiction writers working today--and that Laurie R. King ranks very high among them.
© 2001 by Ron Miller. The cover illustration from "Folly" is © 2001 by Bantam books.
You can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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