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Five-year-old Justin Bennett is kidnapped from an amusement park while his uncle is vomiting in a public toilet. The crime eerily mirrors the abduction (and subsequent murder) of Justin’s half-brother Benjamin Bennett five years before. In both cases a prime suspect is the uncle, openly gay Michael Bennett. The reader knows Michael is innocent. But who is "the abductor" who meticulously plots the abduction and arranges to turn the child over to hired killer Zachary Taylor? Meanwhile, Harland Till, sexually abused as a child by a revivalist, methodically executes gay men who have come to his attention. He sets his sights on Michael, accusing him of molesting Justin just days before the kidnapping. Is he somehow connected to the abduction? And was he responsible for an earlier murder that Michael was somehow connected to? What was the nature of that connection? And why did the police officers Louis D’Amecourt, now the station commander, and Sylvia Barshak, now with the FBI, cover up the killing? The questions that this set of interconnected puzzles raises are not finished. Exactly what is Michael’s relationship to D’Amecourt? And what is he concealing in the box in the attic? What part did Justin’s father Scott Brown play in Benjamin’s abduction? Is he a pederast, as the files found on his computer would indicate? Would he kidnap and kill his own son? Why is he so interested now in Michael’s movements? In short, now that he has been released from prison (where he landed on a drugs charge), exactly what is he up to? The only prominent characters in the novel who are exactly what they seem are the black police officers detective Gloria Towson and her husband Booker Jones. Gloria is convinced that Michael is innocent; she relates to him as a minority: "I know what it’s like to be judged," she says. Booker, however, lets his homophobia interfere with the investigation on which the two of them embark on their own when they become wary of the role D’Amecourt is playing. The novel relies a tad too often on coincidence, nick of the moment discoveries, and somewhat implausible artful disguises. In the end the various questions are satisfactorily answered, and the different parts of the puzzle fall neatly into place (though I confess I did not understand some aspects until I began to put order into the cases to write this review). To get to the conclusions, however, the reader must be willing to go along with moment after moment of "During the drive, he had told her everything" and "...the truth hit her.... I know exactly how those little boys were kidnapped, and why" while we as readers are offered not the slightest clue what is said or thought. Normally withheld information irritates me; for this reason I have never fathomed the appeal of Sherlock Holmes. But the present novel is so well paced that I was swept along. It captures the reader by showing in some detail what the various investigators are doing (and ultimately there are several, both officers and the boy’s relatives) even as it refuses to reveal why. It also offers food for thought about racism, homophobia, various kinds of abuse, inter-spouse dynamics, family loyalties, and the growing role of computers and cell phones in our lives. In spite of flaws, the novel is an auspicious debut.
Reviewed by Drewey Wayne Gunn, August 2007
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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