Ali Karim was a Board Member of Bouchercon [The World Crime & Mystery Convention] and co-chaired programming for Bouchercon Raleigh, North Carolina in 2015. He is Assistant Editor of Shots eZine, British correspondent for The Rap Sheet and writes and reviews for many US magazines & Ezines.
An afternoon disappeared, thanks to this engrossing and tightly edited crime thriller. It is a fast, one-sitting read, with a taut story trapping the reader within this intriguing narrative - until the climax. The themes it explores ratchets up the tension, like a climber’s rope holding the reader aloft.
The story appears to be a classic crime-fiction scenario; a body is uncovered under an icefall. It reveals a mystery hidden by time and tide – except like the snow on a mountain scree, something jagged has been exposed that will provoke thought and danger.
Foster Treherne is a successful artist, part of a group where there maybe envy at his ascension, or is there something else at play?
The narrative lever is pulled when a well-persevered cadaver is discovered after an avalanche on an alpine mountainside. The body is over three decades dead, and due to the ice, that trapped [and preserved] it – the identity is soon uncovered. It is the body of Charlie Treherne; father of the successful artist Foster. The pivot-point is that Foster never knew his father, for he died before he was born. The artist was brought up by indifferent grand-parents, as his mother took her own life. He knew little about ‘who he was’, only who he became.
So, when the US embassy in Switzerland contacts Foster, he packs his bags and heads to Europe with an aide.
The autopsy reveals that the body of Charlie Treherne may have been subject to something more sinister than a climbing accident. This troubles Foster, and so a journey into the past ensues as the young artist investigates his family’s hidden history.
Names from the past, ‘friends’, strangers, photographic imagery and concealed motivations fan the troubled thoughts of Foster Treherne, building a layer of paranoia, as more is revealed about who the artist is, and how he became who he is – or is there something else going on?
Wignall appears intrigued about who we really ‘are’, and ‘who’ really surrounds us. Though an altogether different story, I was reminded of themes that aligned Those Who Disappeared to an earlier and highly acclaimed work from this literary crime novelist.
Sometimes, sleeping dogs should be left on their blankets, but at other times they need to be roused as their slumbering bodies, may conceal something that changes how we view the world around us.
Fast, judiciously edited and a thriller that will provoke thought and make one query who we really are, and who circles us, with the smiles of friendship that may conceal a hidden dimension.
Highly recommended.
