The overabundance of hackery in the mystery genre may cause many people to undervalue the milieu. With good reason, as an endless stream of serial killers, girlboss investigators, and either dysfunctional or fantastical male heroes (like Jack Reacher) diminished the form. In fact, there have been more serial killers in print and onscreen this century than in the whole history of serial killing. Consequently, many people don’t know that from the start, detective fiction has been the chosen orbit for some of the greatest writers of all time. The latest is Andrew Klavan with his fifth, and best, Cameron Winter novel, After That, The Dark.
Also making welcome returns to lighten the intense thriller are series regulars Lori Lesser — Winter’s feminist college nemesis — and master of disguise Stan Stankowsky.
His is a trail begun by Edgar Allan Poe in The Murders in the Rue Morgue. Poe introduced Parisian private investigator C. Auguste Dupin. Who inspired Charles Dickens’ Inspector Bucket in Bleak House. Who inspired Wilkie Collins’ Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone. Who inspired the Master, Sherlock Holmes, created by Arthur Conan Doyle in A Study in Scarlet. Some critics — I’m one — even draw a direct line from Fyodor Dostoevsky’s relentless magistrate Porfiry Petrovich in Crime and Punishment to TV’s classic Lieutenant Columbo.
The Dostoevsky inclusion is appropriate because the greatest Russian novelist of all time infused his philosophy, Christianity, and wisdom into the sordid tale of a double murder and its repercussions. Andrew Klavan not only authored a recent book about Crime and Punishment and the killings that inspired it, The Kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the Literatue of Darkness, he injected his own philosophy, Christianity, and wisdom into the riveting new mystery.
In After That, The Dark, ex-government assassin, current college English professor, and unofficial sleuth Cameron Winter must balance his three personas while investigating a locked cell murder mystery and falling in love. Both threads lead him to a technological monstrosity, a morally misguided billionaire, a tattooed hitman, and the apparent demonic possession of good men turned homicidal maniacs. The twist in the last element is shockingly simple yet brilliant, prompting Winter’s race against time to prevent another murder, that of an innocent wife and mother-to-be.
While trying to solve the case and survive, Winter finds himself part of a national security duel between the Bill Gates-like billionaire, Thaddeus Blatt, and his former intelligence mentor, the Recruiter, and for the first time questions the motivation of the latter. Winter wonders if the Recruiter’s often fatal orders, which he followed, were truly in service of the country or some personal vendetta. This in turn causes the Recruiter to doubt Winter in a flashback. “There’s a storm coming,” the Recruiter says. “And if you’ve lost your faith in what we do and how we do it, you will not survive it. You should get out while you can.”
Despite all the danger, Winter romances his soulmate, a beautiful, feminine, funny, maternal, overtly Christian girl who may singlehandedly stop the novel from becoming a Hollywood hit film. If liberals had a problem with Sidney Sweeney, wait till they get a load of Gwendolyn Lord. But for normal readers, she’s an endearing love interest and a shot at happiness for Winter after four books’ worth of his angst. But only if she stays alive. All she asks of Winter is that he does the same for her.
Also making welcome returns to lighten the intense thriller are series regulars Lori Lesser — Winter’s feminist college nemesis — and master of disguise Stan Stankowsky. This time, Stan somehow channels an Asian pleasure girl, Fulu (“Fool you.”), complete with hilarious fake proverbs. “The river of wisdom flows past the city of madness.” “Oh shut up,” Winter said.
And Lori is demanding minority representation in Winter’s Romantic Poetry class, prompting delightful introspection from Winter — of course, Klavan — as she talks. “What was she saying? … It had something to do with racialism and historic injustices and the systemic metaphorical violence of favoring the poetry of John Keats over whatever blithering doggerel had been scrawled by lesser and justly forgotten versifiers of some oppressed minority or other.”
Klavan comes close to the limit of self-reflection for Winter. He understands we’re less interested in Winter finding himself than finding whatever is making supposedly model husbands demonic and saving a woman’s life. So, when the climactic action kicks in, it’s one nonstop thrill ride.
Maybe Winter’s neutralizing of two major villains is slightly disappointing. One of them is not even shown, only described by Winter after the fact — after we’d spent time in the mind of the killer plotting his next murder. But it doesn’t make Klavan’s choices artistically incorrect, perhaps our bloodthirstiness morally incorrect. And he depicts the anguish of the pregnant victim in a wonderful ode to motherhood.
She was pleading with Jesus to save her baby … She was telling Jesus that she knew she had been bad, very bad, and done many bad things, but that the baby had not done anything to anyone and had not even had the chance to live her life yet and be a person. She was explaining to Jesus that she had to go on living in order for the baby to live, but after the baby was born, Jesus could kill her and she wouldn’t care, if Jesus would take care of her baby and find another mother for her who was not bad like she was but good and could teach her baby to be good so Jesus would love her and take her to heaven.
This is great writing, yes, even in a detective story.
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