Monstrum

Rating:
Summary: Easy, enjoyable, fast read
Review: Constantin, our hero, is a very likeable man: still loves his ex-wife, can't get over the death of his only child and makes nearly every woman in the book crave for him! But poor Constantin can't really enjoy all this affection, as he has to find out who kills all the girls, how to survive his friendship with Roy Rolkin, how to drink about 3 litres of vodka per page (more than 400 totally), how to overcome his allergy to V.I. Lenin (the office-cat who loves fishburgers for breakfast) and who his beloved Julia really is. I liked the book for it's surprising twists, the multitude of characters and the setting in post-war Russia of 2015. Downsides are some implausible story- and character developments, and sometimes the language: It's in 1st person and like: "Believe me, brothers, I didn't always look like this" (p1). The 'brothers' bit is repeated on nearly every page!

Rating:
Summary: C for effort, E for content
Review: I bought this book together with Russell Andrews' "Gideon". I still rue the day.

Constantin Vadim is the sort of cardboard decective who would be unable to find his own nose even equipped with a map and a flashlight. For this he is promoted and sent to Moscow, to work on the case of a serial killer (the "Monstrum" of the title) so well-connected that the only way to keep everybody happy is to assign a moron to the case.

Vadim has a drinking problem, a women problem and a general thinking problem (as in, he doesn't think at all). The man is so utterly brainwashed that I found it very hard to relate to him - which hampered the reading experience, as the novel is narrated in first person singular, from Vadim's viewpoint. His life is a perfect example of Henry Rollins' jibe on the genders: "All women are evil. All men are stupid", none stupider than Vadim, either.

One reviewer mentioned a set of improbable coincidences required to set the plot rolling. In addition, Vadim has about as much initiative as the ball in a pinball machine - events hurl him into other events and people. Actions he undertakes of his own volition are limited to getting drunk, that's about it.

The other personae appearing in this book are either sketchy or cliched, so that there's no relief for the pummelled reader - not much fun even in supposedly humoristic situations (the groan-inducing office cat storyline, for instance). The people in the book live supposedly in 2015, and the adults' historical awareness reaches back at most to 2010 (somebody did a mass mindwipe on the poor Russian people... again...). Sad beyond words.

The C for effort is for the "Russianization" of certain sentences - Vadim's hungover ruminations and some dialogues sound really good. That's what made me give an extra star.

Rating:
Summary: More than a mystery
Review: This book was such a pleasant surprise that I couldn't let go of it for weeks after I read it - and ended up going back to it at least twice since then. Donald James creates an entirely believable landscape in 2015 Moscow, and tells the possible story of the country through the eyes of his characters. I think one of the main reasons why I fell in love with Monstrum was the protagonist character, Vadim, a would-be passive police inspector who just wants to have a quiet job and a quiet apartment where he can miss his dead son and a wife who left him. Instead, through little fault of his own, he gets involved in events seemingly beyond his control. And as he stumbles through life, increasingly becoming more and more involved, making choices and searching for the truth, one can't help but ache for his fate and for the fate of those around him.

Female characters here are also especially interesting - I haven't seen such strong, complex women in many other novels.

Donald James is a historian and that is a great plus for Monstrum: he knows the shifts and spirals of history. The future he imagines for Russia (hopefully it can be avoided) is in tune at once with this country's turbulent past and its ambivalent present. I don't think even after 2015, this novel will possibly be outdated: instead it could be thought of as an alternate reality. A serial killer mystery is overshadowed here by its political connections, and that gives the writer room to go in many surprising directions.

While dark in content, it's ultimately uplifting, and wonderfully so, since after as much as the characters go through in this story, they deserve some hope at the end. This is a mystery with a heart of a romantic quest and a historic novel - and it does honor to all these genres.

I so wish he would write a sequel. There is room enough for it. I probably will be waiting hopelessly for it, but my point is...this book is too good to pass up.