William Paul - Stranger Things
Constable £15.99
DCI David Fyfe has got a corpse on his hands. It is the body of a young girl, and he doesn't know how she died. The body has not been cut or bruised, and there are no signs of tell-tale needle marks. The pathologist can see that her brain has been starved of oxygen, but he doesn't know how. Some kind of gas or poison, perhaps. It's going to take time to find out exactly what. Trouble is, Fyfe doesn't have time. By the afternoon of the same day he has another body on his hands. And the second body looks as though it's suffering from the same affliction as the first. Both girls have hearts tattooed on their buttocks.
William Paul then introduces a second complication into his plot. DCI Fyfe's married daughter arrives home, her face bruised and battered by her violent husband. Fyfe quickly notes the comparison between his personal and his professional life, and as readers we have to wake up to the possibility of synchronicities, and the realisation that we might be dealing here with something more than your average detective yarn.
The next day Scott Anderson's pet dog, Rex, turns into a slavering monster and attacks his owner. A while later Billy Stoddard arrives at the local bus depot, climbs aboard a double decker, and drives it full pelt into a brick wall.
The action, which covers four days, is set mainly in Edinburgh, and Fyfe and his fellow coppers are depicted as seriously alienated beings, moving from one side of the law to the other and back again, abusing themselves with alcohol and betraying themselves and their women with impunity. Meanwhile the populace of the city are dropping like flies, seemingly afflicted by some dreadful disease, and reeking of moral bankruptcy. They suffer horrific, gothic hallucinations before they commit suicide or are destroyed by the poison.
The reason for all this is only explained in the last thirty pages of the book. And I'm not going to tell you what it is. Suffice it to say that the explanation is very strange. 'Stranger things have happened,' says one of the policemen. And it's perfectly true, they have. But I didn't believe a word of it.
John Baker
