It starts with an eye...then quickly degenerates into a violent, frightening series of images that have the capability of unlocking hidden memories, causing blindness, permanently haunting you with its celluloid evil, and even the power to bring bloody death to your doorstep. This is the story I'm currently journeying through in French author Franck Thilliez's chilling thriller, Syndrome E.
Hidden images and the intense subconscious affect it can have on the human psyche is the focal point of this visceral, disturbing story. The writing takes you down dark paths and within the shadows are a series of mysterious crimes involving brainwashing, murders and mutilations, spanning from Canada to Egypt to France over more than a fifty-year period. It is directly linked to a nightmarish and obscure piece of cinema footage from the early 1950s. The question so far is precisely what secrets will unfold from the mysterious old film reel?
The twists and turns Thilliez creates are dizzying. There are two protagonists, a mentally unstable inspector called Sharko who keeps suffering delusions of a little girl who emotionally torments him, and an inquisitive police detective called Lucie Hennebelle who's juggling the great stress from the sudden illness of one of her daughters with this creepiness and death that's dropped into her lap. The characterizations are sharp and clear--I like that! This is good writing, expertly delineated. I quickly got a strong grasp on these two people's personalities and their growing sense of purpose in their involvement with a case that's so beyond bizarre, it extends into hellish territory.
So far, Syndrome E is an excellent read!
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