Reading matters

'Lost Souls' by Michael Collins

Fiction - paperback; Phoenix; 292 pages; 2003.

Dark, depressing and claustrophobic. These are the words that best describe this unconventional crime novel set in the heartland of industrial America, where "the smell of sulphur made the air taste bitter, a haze of pollution hanging in the wintry light, the chimneystacks breathing fire".

Into this "crouched, grand, sad and burned out landscape" dotted with factories, shopping malls, dilapidated motels and highways, Lawrence, a divorced policeman, discovers the body of a three-year-old girl lying face down in a pile of autumn leaves by the side of a road. It appears as if the toddler, who is dressed as an angel, has been the victim of a hit-and-run accident during the town's busy Halloween night festivities.

But why was she by herself? And why did the driver fail to stop and give assistance?

During the ensuing investigation, the town's star quarterback, a 17-year-old schoolboy called Kyle, emerges as the chief suspect.  But in a soulless town desperate for heroes a cover-up takes place to ensure the teenager's promising football career remains untarnished.

Lawrence, his sense of right and wrong dulled by his own personal and financial problems, becomes an unwitting pawn in the mayor's plan to "fudge" the investigation. When he later finds his own life threatened by an unknown assailant, Lawrence begins to question his role in the power games being played out by those around him. His actions, fuelled by fear, loneliness and paranoia, only serve to turn him into a suspect in the very case he is supposed to be investigating...

'The Keepers of Truth' by Michael Collins

Fiction - paperback; Phoenix - Orion Books; 297  pages; 2001.

Shortlisted for the 2000 Booker Prize, Collins' novel has been widely applauded -- and with good reason.

I found it to be a gripping, unputdownable read about a misfit journalist working on the biggest story of his new, fledgling career. Bill, the narrator, is well educated and well-off, but he is not unlike the more lowly masses he finds himself writing about -- the only difference is the money.

Dark, disturbing and at times downright morbid, Collins' tale centres on a murder in small town America in the seventies. But it goes way beyond the crime genre, charting the social disintegration of an industrial town in decline.

Some of his descriptions are particularly poignant given the recent events in America: "It's maybe the greatest secret we possess as a nation, our sense of alienation from everyone else around us, our ability to have no sympathy, no empathy for others' suffering, a decentralised philosophy of individual will, a culpability that always lands back on us."

Not only is The Keepers of Truth an intelligent read, it's a gripping read as well.