Alex North’s latest, ‘The Man Made of Smoke’ burns darkly…

Beyond a 'Whisper', there's still something eerie in the embers of this latest tale of memory, fate and family...

When still a young boy, Dan Garvie, narrowly avoided the clutches of a notorious serial killer, but ever since he’s quietly wondered if his actions on the day doomed another child.

However, the notorious ‘Pied Piper’ is now long dead and Dan is a grown man and a successful psychologist, helping both with meeting the needs of survivors and with the profiling of other killers. Dan has tried to put the childhood trauma behind him, but when he receives devastating news about his estranged father, he heads back to their old island home.

Rather than providing closure, the visit raises more questions. Dan’s father, an ex-police officer, had been reexamining old crimes and it appears his fate may be linked to that pivotal day from Dan’s past. As Dan retraces his father’s last known movements, it becomes apparent that he and his family might be the last links in a fateful chain of events…

 

Even the best authors would likely agree that they excel in navigating a particular genre. While there might be momentary diversions and a desire to occasionally flex, successful, best-selling writers and their publishers know their niche and while gently pushing and flirting at the boundaries, they already know that they own a specific section of literary turf and reading real-estate.

The thing about author Alex North is that almost every novel he’s released into the wild is distinct but far less easy to pigeon-hole alongside other scribes. Yes, all have a grounded sense of the way that all-too-human monsters can claw into the mundane, everyday lives of regular people. There’s a creeping, undeniable and sometimes brutal darkness inflicted upon characters we quickly come to care about. There’s the power and cost of family connections… and sometimes there’s more than a hint of something ethereal in the evil being done, or in the way its presented. But while there’s a specific sense of flow and style and mix of ingredients that singles out an Alex North tome with a view, it’s not easy to say what literary company he keeps. Perhaps it’s the fertile yet watch-your-step ground somewhere between Stephen King and Ken Loach. It’s certainly the best-seller neighbourhood.

US Edition…

North’s The Whisper Man (currently being filmed for Netflix with no less than the likes of Robert De Niro and Michael Keaton) and The Shadows, both had touches of the surreal and the idea that some ethereal factors remain unexplained or open to point-of-view by book’s end. More overtly, The Man Made of Smoke has its fair share of ghosts and if they aren’t the literal spirits of the dead, then the text does give the story’s past victims and characters important voices-off cadence beyond their demise, both in the way that psychiatrist Dan Garvie conjures up different mental viewpoints to help sort his thoughts and in the way that North himself once again plays with interconnecting time-lines with characters’ specific fates. It’s a style that proves very effective, even when juggling multiple personalities in the mix and one can imagine that – should this also find its way to the screen… and it definitely should – it will lend itself to a very interesting visual style, making sure that the needs of basic exposition are never boring.

An enjoyable read isn’t always a comfortable one and there’s much that could get under the skin of the reader. The book concerns the potential legacy of a serial killer of children, the idea of mental and physical abuse, suicide and uneven family dynamics. That means that while the story will likely suck you in, it’s never going to have you anywhere but in uneasy territory. As much as you will want to see what the final curtain reveals, it’s likely a book you’ll need to read in more than one sitting, just to remind yourself of daylight and loved ones.

The characters involved in the story all resonate, distinct but locked into differing orbits around the truth.  The literary landscape is littered with troubled criminalists but here North makes his lead insightful and intuitive without being miraculously clever – you see and experience how an all-too-human Garvie comes to his conclusions (right and wrong) rather than merely told to accept them in a grateful way as some sort of cerebral superhero. The multiple points of view could be confusing, but by-and-large they work well, playing into the idea that no one character (no less the reader) has all the answers until the final pages and that differing views of the same events can be equally valid. While some stories throw in unlikely contrivances to hobble a more linear investigation for the sake of pacing, North’s introduction of obstacles, though sometimes inconvenient, consistently speak to understandable motives and the foibles of the characters rather than purely artificial extensions. The pacing may meander from time to time and you’ll be wondering if North can all tie it all together but by the end of the story, for the most part, it ultimately folds together like dark and paper-cut origami.

I’d always suggest that new Alex North readers start with The Whisper Man, but The Man Made of Smoke – with its parts  reflecting the five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, despair, and acceptance – is still another excellent read that will draw you into its embers.

*In the spirit of full transparency the reviewer acknowledges a family connection to the author.


The Man Made of Smoke is published by Penguin Books in the UK and Celadon Books in the US and is out now in hardback. The paperback will be published in November.

'The Man made of Smoke'  (book review)
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'The Man made of Smoke' (book review)
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