Thriller set in small town America (keep The Faith…)
- Book: The Killing of Bobbi Lomax
- Location: United States (USA)
- Author: Cal Moriarty
The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is a brilliant debut novel by Cal Moriarty – an author of whom we will surely hear a great deal more. It is set in the fictional town of Abraham City in the Bible Belt of small town America. Great in TripFiction terms in that it really captures the atmosphere of such a place. The book is a very cleverly put together thriller with many layers. It is set in 1982 and 1983 – a time before mobile phones and the Internet… and that, in itself, is intriguing. We are taken back to the mysterious world of pay phones and pagers. It is a reminder of the great technological progress of the past 40 years.
There are two murders within a day – those of beauty queen and new bride (to a man 40 years her senior…) Bobbi Lomax, and of Peter Gudsen, a property developer. Each is killed by a bomb. And there is a third attempted bombing – this time of Clark Houseman, a rare books and coin dealer. But the bomb didn’t quite kill him – and his witness account is detectives Marty Sinclair and Al Alvarez’s best chance of solving the case. The detectives quickly find themselves clashing with those who control the town and its people. The Faith is an all pervasive religious cult desperate to protect its image and power. Its leaders are sinister and prone to secret dealings – anxious to preserve the mystique surrounding their founder, Robert Bright. Documents come to light which shed doubt on his propriety – he is said to have been a bigamist with three teenage wives. Did Robert leave a Will, and which son did he select to succeed him as leader of The Faith? These matters cannot get out into the public domain.
The Killing of Bobbi Lomax is a story not just of murder, but also of trickery and of fraudulent property dealings. These, of course, all come together as the denouement approaches – and it is a surprising and well conceived denouement. It is a story that is written in a very well observed – and slightly quirky – manner. It feels real and possible – even down to the tramp who lives in a shelter insulated with books banned by The Faith, and the somewhat weird twin brothers – Rod and Ron Rook – who are coin collectors and dealers.
I have just two possible criticisms. First, I found the characters a little confusing and hard to identify – some of them seemed to blend into each other in my mind. And I just wonder whether this is why the author / the publisher included a list of characters at the beginning of the book? A device I found very useful, but one that I would have thought would not be necessary. It is not as if this was a Russian novel with three different names for everyone! Second, it took me a little while to work out how the timeline worked… The title for each chapter is a date and time – but that didn’t initially register. The murders occurred at Halloween 1983, but the story leading up to them starts in July 1982. So there are two parallel timelines – from Halloween 1983 as the detectives investigate, and from July 1982 as prior events build up. Pretty much alternate chapters chart the progress of each… Works well when one understands what is happening.
But these are just very minor niggles. Overall the book is a great success and puts Cal Moriarty very firmly on the map as a thriller writer to note. I look forward very much to her next work.
This review originally appeared on our blog AND we interview the author
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