I don\u2019t normally subscribe to the Marxist camp of literary theory, but this mystery novel grated on my sensibilities until finally, after I finished it, the grating turned into a salient realization:
\nThe Night Searchers is a screed, beckoning the top 10 percent to piss on the bottom 10 percent. The wealthy to lord their wealth and privilege over the poor. Not the super-wealthy, just the normal-wealthy.
\nI realize this is a vulgar thing to write, but it is an unfortunately true approximation of the book, its themes, its characters, its setting, etc.
\nWe have Mrs. Sharon McCone, private detective, living in San Francisco and married to a man who runs some sort of similar agency.
\nBoth are filthy, stinking rich. Multiple houses in multiple locations. Fancy sports cars. One house in San Francisco, with its bloated rents pushed higher by the likes of McCone. Two other houses, sitting unused, unneeded by them. They have the privilege to waste. (The reader, I suppose, is supposed to laude these marks of the main character\u2019s wealth.)<\/p>\n
\n(At this point in the review, I will cop to my dislike for very wealthy characters and the presentation of such. I find it to be unnecessary and the characters, more often than not, to be unlikeable or less likeable because of it. This excludes the escapades of aristocracy in novels of yore.)
\nI will also now express my discontent with the printing of the book: huge one-and-a-half spaced print does not justify this book\u2019s 290 pages, with blanks for each new day. It\u2019s longer than a novella, but not by terribly much. I\u2019m frankly impressed at the publisher\u2019s ability to string it out over so many pages.<\/p>\n
The other major flaw (before we get any further) is the entire plotline and the plot device used to make it all go round. Part of that device is pissing on the poor and part of it entirely broke my suspension of disbelief.
\nAn urban adventurers organization is up to no good. (Run around the city, looking for clues to find a prize one of your fellow companions has hidden and written the clues for. Like a clue-heavy geocaching. They\u2019re dangerous!)<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a \u201cpsychologist\u201d character talking about the \u201curban adventure\u201d group to McCone. McCone replies.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think you should underestimate the dangers presented by this . . . well, I hate to use the term cult<\/i>, but essentially that\u2019s what they are. Mixtures of various types of personalities, some dominant, some weak; some worldly, some na\u00efve; some control freaks, some victims.\u201d
\n\u201cWe\u2019ve all seen the damage those combinations can do: the Manson Family, the People\u2019s Temple, the Mormon separatists.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, and if some factor disturbs the mix, tips the scales, it can lead to serious trouble. If I were you, Ms. McCone, I\u2019d be very careful in your dealings with this group.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nShe what she did? She set up the geocaching group to be the equivalent of cult-of-personality based murder-centric groups. Honestly, I don\u2019t see why Ms. Muller, the author, didn\u2019t throw the Nazis into the mix, or maybe the savages from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.
\nWhen I think geocaching, or \u201curban adventure groups\u201d I think \u201cmurderous fun.\u201d Let\u2019s also just ignore the fact that any and every group attracts all kinds of personalities. Just ignore it.<\/p>\nWorthy of your disdain<\/b>
\nPlease, let us dive deeper into the origins, the place, the class, the characters who make up this group, the collective villain of the novel. These low-lifes lead boring, pointless lives filled with monotony, usually done in boring service jobs.
\n(This is in contrast to McCone\u2019s life of leisure mixed with professional adventure and para-police activities, all wrapped in a cushioning of ownership and domination over employees.)
\nThe group\u2019s most welcoming member has a single claim to fame: she believes (as do others) her father was abducted when she was a child. This belief (proven to be unfounded) is a great mocking-point for the main character, McCone, and by extension the reader. This poor woman is miserable and pathetic and believes in things we, the educated elite, could not possibly believe, because we know better (a consequence of the opportunities afforded us.)<\/p>\nMarlene Daniels, the group\u2019s leader, she\u2019s born in a home for unwed mothers, given up for adoption, lives her life in the foster care system and runs away from the final foster home at 16. Then, she\u2019s a \u201cstreet person,\u201d when she \u201chooks up with\u201d another member of the group, Zeronsky.
\nMcCone exercises her para-police abilities (which we would cringe at if they appeared in the newspaper, both horrified and impressed at the willingness of the wealthy to use their power to physically control, harass, dominate the poor) to have Zeronsky, aka Zero, brought to her. Physically brought, against her will.<\/p>\n\u201c\u2019A lot of nerve you\u2019ve got,\u2019 she said in a deep-South drawl, \u2018sending this ape to manhandle me.\u2019 As she spoke, she reveleaed crooked, yellow teeth.
\n\u201cThis ape.<\/i>
\n\u201cNot only was she physically deformed, she was also a racist.\u201d
\nMcCone uses her own excuse of being hit on the head as a reason for the blatant kidnapping.
\nWhile I don\u2019t agree with the term the character Zero uses to describe the man who kidnapped her and brought her to the very-rich para-police captor, please notice how she sets up that this is a racist remark: \u201cdeep-South drawl,\u201d \u201ccrooked, yellow teeth.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nObviously because she\u2019s from the south, she has to be racist, and have bad teeth. It\u2019s not like she\u2019s been kidnapped by a rich private detective or anything.
\nLater on, we\u2019re supposed to feel good about McCone making sure Zero may not leave the premises.
\n\u201cZero wasn\u2019t going any place. To ensure that, I\u2019d ordered a twenty-four hour guard on her house.\u201d
\nAt this point, we should all want this rich vigilante locked up.<\/p>\nZeronsky. He\u2019s on track for a PhD (philosophy) and drops out.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u2019Now he works for a carpet installer and his old lady\u2019s a clerk at Kinkos. No criminal record on either. They\u2019re married, have no kids.\u2019\u201d
\n\u201c\u2019And both have boring jobs. Good candidates for the Night Searchers.\u2019\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\nPlease allow a little unpacking: Zeronsky ostensibly belongs to the main characters class. Educated, part of the elite, moving toward a respect society job of professor or something else that\u2019ll hire a PhD. But he\u2019s dropped out and he\u2019s joined the adventure club.
\nThe author has her character use the term \u201cold lady\u201d to refer to Zeronsky\u2019s wife, a term often used in and associated with motorcycle clubs, and outlaw motorcycle gangs. This club, she implies, it\u2019s like the Hell\u2019s Angels. Selling dope, raping across the country, trafficking guns.
\nBoth have service industry jobs, doing work that services those in the main character\u2019s (and therefore, you, the reader\u2019s,) class in expensive San Francisco.
\nNotice, too, the condescension from the main character. \u201cboring jobs\u201d making them good candidates for a murder-for-hire-and-fun group.
\nThe author chose he words carefully to match with her theme. These people, these underclasslings who serve us, the elite, their entertainment is not enough. We, you the dear reader, me, the author, we have taken away the gladiatorial blood sport these service industry workers need.<\/p>\nNext up, Grizeldy, whom we get to know a little. She\u2019s the abduction lady. Works at an insurance company, the same one, for 20 years, the same one she was \u201cplaced\u201d at following her training.
\nHer job stability is to be disdained. It makes her want to join the urban adventure murderers group, in addition to making her boring.
\n\u201c\u2019Anything about her besides having held the same job forever, that uniquely qualifies her for the group?\u2019\u201d
\nThen we get the alien shtick.
\nMick, filthy-rich nephew, describes how she, Grizeldy, claimed the dad was abducted. Ten years later, he gets arrested for serial bigamy. She sticks by the adduction story.
\n\u201c\u2019God. Another perfect candidate.\u2019\u201d The people whom the main character is researching in a rather unflattering and invasive way, well, they\u2019re beneath her teenager-hates-her-parents disdain. \u201cGod,\u201d she says. \u201cAnother perfect candidate,\u201d she says, to join an urban adventure and murder-for-hire group. She\u2019s both worrisome and pathetic.
\nWe go through even more characters. The point is, the one thing of value to Grizeldy is a plaque commemorating her father\u2019s not-really-an-abduction-abduction. It\u2019s important to her. When the main character, McCone finds it, it\u2019s another reason to hold the lowly serf in high contempt. That and the condition of her house. (Mind you, it\u2019s not like she can afford a maid and, really, she shouldn\u2019t be taking up space rich, educated elite people could be taking up.)<\/p>\n\u201cHow could this plaque be Grizeldy\u2019s \u2018grand prize\u2019? (sic) It was too damned insignificant . . . and yet witnessing the so-called abduction had been one event in her life what made her someone of importance. Again, I thought of what she\u2019d told me in the car the night before she died: \u2026 a plain, little, ordinary woman. Living a plain, little, ordinary life.<\/i>\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
If you, dear reader, are ready a plain, little, or ordinary life: you are worthy of all of our collective contempt. Just FYI.<\/p>\n
Worthy of your envy<\/b>
\nHer nephew, Mick Savage, and his buddy, Derek Ford, they\u2019re geniuses. They sold their search engine to a giant company and a more state-of-the-art version of the aforementioned engine was going to go public in months.
\nHe, too, is filthy stinking rich. And in case you didn\u2019t know, let\u2019s talk about that for a few more pages.<\/i>
\nThe hubby? High-powered hostage negotiator.
\n\u201cHy was known as the best negotiator in his field, but some of those types of tricky confrontations ended in bloodshed.\u201d
\nNo, no normal husband here. They\u2019re a power couple.<\/p>\nNow we get to talk about her car.<\/p>\n
\u201cI paused to admire my new car before I got in. When my BMW Z4\u2014sold to me by Rae, since Ricky insisted on buying her a new car every year on her birthday\u2014was destroyed in the house fire, I\u2019d been devastated. For years I\u2019d driven and loved an old MG I\u2019d owned since college, but I\u2019d loved the Z4 even more. For awhile I drove rentals, and then Hy surprised me with a Mercedes SLK 350 roadster. Red, with a removable hardtop and a black ragtop.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
It\u2019s not just her who\u2019s rich, its her husband, her friend and her friend\u2019s husband. And all this wealth, and all this privilege, keeps on circling back to them, and has to be pointed out to us, the poor reader, time and time again. I\u2019m not sure why we must be told page after page of how filthy rich the main character is. We get it. She\u2019s rich, she\u2019s white, she lives in San Francisco and uses her privilege. We get it.<\/p>\n
I think, dear reader, you get it by now. The rich should ever keep their feet on the throats of all those below them. We should allow them to do use by granting them the right to point guns at people, kidnap people, etc. The rich must always be allowed to assert their dominance over the poor, for it is their birthright.<\/p>\n
This book was received, free of charge, from the Goodreads First Reads program.<\/i><\/p>\n