"From cleaner to crusader" by Matthew Birch

An easy-to-read minimalist action thriller.

Carl cleans up the evidence from government sanctioned assassinations. But the next corpse he discovers is his mother's. He tries to find out why she was killed and uncovers the murky secrets of the government agency for which he works. This leads to a climactic confrontation.

This book is written in the present tense, which gives it a sense of immediacy, and in the first person so that the reader sees everything from the perspective of the narrator. There's a lot of exposition and this extends to the narrator describing his dilemmas and moral choices in very clear terms. This has the effect of making him seen coldly dispassionate. This fits with the cold, almost totally loveless life he describes in chapter one and I suppose that a scene of crime cleaner has to bottle his emotions but Carl really doesn't appear to feel anything. He says that he feels upset by his mother's death but he seems totally in control. Perhaps he's a psychopath who doesn't feel emotions but knows how to fake them so as to appear normal.

The book is written in a staccato, stripped-down style. There's a lot of conflict but very little description. I'm not sure what any of the characters look like. This minimalism and focus on a narrated plot makes the story quick and very easy to read.

Characterisations tend to rely on archetypes. Although the protagonist arcs from being a pliant tool of the state to a rebel, this seems to be accomplished with very little difficulty or pain. Few of the other characters experience much development.

In chapter two, which, in a neat touch, starts with a near repetition of the starting of chapter one, there are several details that confused me. I had assumed that the second phone call came on the evening of the first day but we are told it was "last night"; it seemed odd that Carl didn't recognise the details of the address he was sent to; in chapter one he appears to be working solo while in chapter two he is part of a team. I thought at first that these were hints of an unreliable narrator - a postmodern touch - but there were no other suggestions of this except close to the end when the chronological sequence doesn't quite fit. There is also an interesting melding of USA details (senator, congressional inquiry, the word 'normalcy') and UK details ('a pint in the pub', the word 'mate' rather than 'pal'). 

Given his job, for which he would surely have had training, Carl seems unbelievably naive about what the 'agency' might be up to ... but given what is at stake he seems to be able to discover the truth with remarkable ease. Perhaps more description, even if it slowed up the story, would have led to greater verisimilitude.

Selected quotes:

• "Her voice, a lullaby in the harsh symphony of my existence, brings me a comfort that’s hard to come by in my line of work." (Ch 1)
• "The realisation that I truly am on my own in this fight settles in, a chilling companion in the darkness." (Ch 5)

June 2024

This review was written by the author of Bally and Bro, Motherdarling  and The Kids of God