So, Kevin finally wrote a post. Don’t count on mine being as long, we will see. Also, watch out – this ramble is full of spoilers.
Book cover from the internet.
Jaime Lee Moyer wrote a book called Delia’s Shadow. It is about a woman you can see ghosts. She leaves her home in San Fransisco to avoid seeing ghosts – cause that is crazy and she doesn’t want to be insane. weirdly, New York doesn’t seem to have ghosts at least for the first two and half years of her self-imposed exile. Then, one particularly strong ghost finds Delia and latches on, effectively driving her back to San Fransisco and the world of crazy people. San Fransisco is currently plagued with a serial killer and Delia’s ghost was one of his victims.
Back in San Fransisco Delia returns to her adopted home, where her adopted mother is dying and her adopted sister, Sadie, is about to be married, to Jack. Naturally Jack’s best man, Gabe, is single – as our female lead must fall in love with someone suitable by the end of the book. Of course, Gabe with his tragic history and dead first wife will match Delia’s own tragic history with two dead parents – being an orphan is sad. Both Jack and Gabe are lead detectives on the current serial murder case – which is theoretically the focus of the plot.
The story is set in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s – I don’t think a date was give. It is simple and logical in its set and competently written. I was going to say it was good, solid book – not brilliant as it lacked that indescribable spark that elevates good writing to inspired writing – until I started thinking about it.
The plot is simple – there are two detectives, a mass murderer and a city full of victims. The murders resemble those that occurred nearly thirty years earlier, down to the same brutality used on each victim, the same signature on the letters sent first to the newspaper and then to the lead detective. Threats are made against the city and then against the detective and his family (in present time, this includes Delia and Sadie). At the same time the Pan-American Fair is taking place in the city – oh and Sadie and Jack are planning their wedding.
Ghosts and emotional auras are the magic in the world. Technology includes cars starting to replace horse-drawn carriages, electric lights and cameras.
All the usual points seemed to happen. The ghosts try to threaten Delia. Delia and Gabe start off trying to be polite but indifferent to each other, but fall in love. Sadie is kidnapped by the murder towards the end and it is a race to save her life. Only, the story struggled in several key areas.
The main character is Bland. She is colourless, weak and while she defends her ghost from being sent away Delia doesn’t want to use her ghost to solve these murders. Delia’s sections are all written first person, which means a long steam of internal dialogue and a lot of ‘telling’ rather than ‘showing’. For example, we get a couple paragraphs of Delia reflecting on the stupidity of her decision to leave San Fransisco in favour of New York – because as she points out in the most high-handed fashion, that move did not change her ability to see ghosts, the way Sadie felt/looked at Delia and only meant Delia spent three years away from the people she loved. Thank you for that moral lesson.
Gabe’s sections are written in the third person – for contrast I assume. Though each time we have a change in perspective that character’s name in is written as the header. Gabe’s perspective is to show us insight into the workings of the police as they hunt down the killer. The police seem to act like those on TV; there is nothing rich or interesting about the manner in which the police are written.
Both of the above are more style points; writing. The other aspect of the writing was the error I found in one passage. The author has gathered five people for a séance and she carefully and precisely tells us where each person sits, then changes the location of two characters. It really stood out.
The biggest problem, the must unforgivable problem the book has is with motivations. Two people in particular were not well thought out. Jack appears to be irrationally angry with his family. His father, Jack discovers later in life, lied to him. The father told two lies: the first we learn is that the woman Jack knew as his mother was actually his stepmother. Though, if the woman raised him as her own, then I don’t understand why Jack was so angry. And I must have missed something because I don’t remember why there was any conflict between Jack and his stepmother – it seemed like forced conflict. The second occurs when we discover that Delia’s ghost, the woman who was killed in the murders 30 years ago and has been haunting Delia for the past six months, is Jack’s biological mother. Jack’s father told him his mother died of cholera (not that she disappeared). Of course the police at the time didn’t know the ghost’s name, so they could never actually inform the family. Again, I don’t know why Jack was so vehemently angry.
Bigger than Jack’s irrational anger, was the motivation of the killer. So, apparently the murder, Ethan, spends two years with his crazy uncle when his own mother dies and his father can’t cope. In those two years, normal young Ethan (about six when he leaves) because a crazed, death hungry psychopath. As he grows up he starts torturing and killing people in order to have their souls judged by the Egyptian gods. Really, really doesn’t make any sence. There is nothing inherently evil about the plethora of Egyptian gods associated with death. So to claim that Ethan kills on their behalf is bizarre and requires more of an explanation than ‘my uncle told me to’. What was wrong with the uncle? How was he able to brainwash and corrupt a child so thoroughly. I know the story was trying to say something about how even the most brutal people can appear normal with wives and children. But that Ethan, so depraved in the killings, so thoroughly obsessed had an innocent wife and child seems far beyond likely. The book tries to say that Ethan never stopped killing (during those 30 intervening years – he was a youth when he first terrorized the city and would now be late 40’s) but why did the ghosts suddenly take an interest in stopping him? Why did Ethan suddenly return to San Fransisco and start sending letters to the newspaper & police. The letters were not apparently a thing for 30 years (did he forget how to write for that length of time?).
Oh, and finally, how did the police manage to keep the entire city from knowing there was a serial killer on the loose? Someone, almost anyone associated with the crimes would have leaked the problem. This is not something you can covered up for months on end.
In the end Delia’s Shadow is Ok. I reads well at first glance, a little slow and colourless, but it does not hold up under further consideration. Passable, I suppose – if you want to discuss the psychology of crime and complain about how this killer is unrealistic.