Tess Gerritsen - The Mephisto Club (2006)
Reviewed by Yvette Banek
Layer upon shadowy layer, character upon ominous character, so is revealed the latest menacing thriller by veteran crime writer extraordinaire Tess Gerritsen. The Mephisto Club is one of those dark tales that you know going in -- simply from the title alone -- unspeakable things will probably happen and you’d better be prepared.
Gerritsen doesn’t disappoint. This is another winner in a terrific series featuring Medical Examiner Maura Isles and Boston cop Jane Rizzoli -- two well conceived and believable women characters who manage to navigate the treacherous crime ridden streets of Boston all the while chartering a course through the tangle of their private lives. The romantically conflicted Isles is the more intriguing of the two, while Rizzoli’s angst over her parents’ middle-aged crazies makes for a less interesting sideline. But why quibble. On the whole, I tolerated these forays into the private arena, the better to get on with the thriller at hand. And thrilling it is, indeed.
The year grinds to a bad end as a grisly Christmas murder on Boston’s east side offers up season’s greetings to Rizzoli and Isles. Not to mention, for the butchered young victim Lori-Ann Tucker. The unfortunate young woman is soon linked by the police to Isle’s old nemesis, psychologist Joyce O’Donnell. Even more interesting, O’Donnell, an officiously self-assured woman who specializes in insinuating herself within the dangerous mental schematics of serial killers, is a member of a secret society: the ominously named Mephisto Club of the book’s title. How do all these things add up? We’re only just beginning.
For on the wall over at Lori Ann Tucker’s apartment, the cops have found a Latin scribble meaning, "I have sinned," this instantly sends them in a certain direction: looking for similar crimes with similar scribbles.
Members of the Mephisto Club who gather to investigate evil in its various incarnations are questioned. Evil exists and demons walk the earth in human form, club members insist -- they have the historical tracts to prove it. They’ve made it their business to study any and all aspects of evil, attempting not only to add to the world’s knowledge, but in hopes of identifying and isolating the demons among us. In this fight they are on the side of the angels, or so they would have the skeptical Boston PD believe.
Isles, whose mother was revealed in an earlier book to be a serial killer, is especially intrigued by the Mephistos, its mantra, and its president, the attractive and enigmatic Anthony Sansone, a beautifully conceived character whose intriguing persona jumps off the page at the reader. This fairly sepulchral chat early on between Sansone and Isles at his Beacon Hill brownstone sets the tone.
"You’re asking me to explain evil."
"Yes."
"I can’t. Neither can science. It just is."
He nodded. "That’s exactly right. It just is, and it’s always been with us. A real entity, living among us, stalking us. Waiting for its chance to feed. Most people aren’t aware of it, and the don’t recognized it, even when it brushes up against them. When it passes them on the street." His voice had dropped to a whisper. In the momentary hush, she heard the cackle of flames in the hearth, the murmur of voices in the other room.
"But you do," he said. "You’ve seen it with your own eyes."
"I’ve only seen what every homicide cop has seen."
"I’m not talking about everyday crimes. Spouses killing spouses, drug dealers shooting competition. I’m talking about what you saw in your mother’s eyes. The gleam. The spark. Not divine, but something unholy."
While the brutal murders mount and the main drama evolves, an underlying story is also revealed. That of the Saul family, seemingly normal folk who, unbeknownst to anyone have nurtured a "demon" in their midst. There’s something surreal and yet, inevitably touching about this family’s legendary bad luck and history of calamities.
The back and forth between these two stories is handled especially well by Gerritsen. And it is the final meeting ground as both tales converge that offers the book’s bravura conclusion.
The Mephisto Club will leave you shuddering and very probably looking over your shoulder. It is that deliberately downbeat, an intense and frightening look at the heart of evil. Very much the kind of thing that probably shouldn’t be read late into the cold, lonely hours of a dark and stormy night. But, being fearless, I read it straight through unable to put it down, so intrigued was I by its underlying theme. I was also taken by the Victorian richness that Gerritsen manages to invoke, especially in the Beacon Hill setting where the Mephistos ply their trade. Most of the storyline seems somehow viewed through a glass of wine darkly.
I have the feeling that Gerritsen will be making more use of the denizens of the Mephisto Club in the future. And I, for one, can’t wait.
Posted by Yvette Banek in Book Reviews | Permalink
