Crime Scene: CANDICE FOX Hades. Reviewed by Lou Murphy
There’s a constant sense of danger as concurrent stories of past and present creep towards each other in this intricate and gritty novel.
Hades is not the kind of book to snuggle up in bed with at night – it would undoubtedly give you nightmares. This disturbing crime debut from Candice Fox is best read armed with a stiff drink and a strong stomach.
Set in a dark, mysterious Sydney, the story begins with Hades, a criminal fixer who runs an underground disposal business for ‘the bodies of evil ones’. His shadowy existence is turned upside down when two children, Morgan and Marcus, the orphaned survivors of a botched kidnapping, are delivered to him by an ill-informed stranger. Hades makes the decision to take the traumatised children into his care. Through his criminal connections he is able to garner new identities for them – Eden and Eric – and raise them as his own. As they mature, Eric develops sinister needs of his own, which, lacking any moral compass, he is free to act on:
Eventually the boy pulled an object from under him and set it in Hades’ palm. Hades studied the object in his fingers. It seemed to be an animal tail.
‘What is this?’
‘It’s a cat’s tail. I was trying to touch Eden with it. That’s why she was screaming.’
‘Where did you get it?’
‘I’m sorry, Hades.’ Eric tried to compose his face into what he thought was remorse but all he achieved was a quizzical frown. ‘We’re both sorry.’
That word again. Sorry. It was a learned thing. They thought they could say it and make things better, but they had no conception of what it meant.
Running concurrently to the unfolding of Eden’s and Eric’s childhood and growing to maturity is the contrasting reality of their world as adults. Both have become police officers, though none of Eric’s menacing qualities have been left behind. When homicide detective Frank Bennett is partnered with the beautiful and elusive Eden, her brother is quick to assert himself through violence. Bennett has strong instincts, however, and is not easily intimidated. Enamoured by his new partner, he is determined to win her confidence:
She bent to adjust her boot and I noticed a long scar running the length of her hairline, faint and barely detectable.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘So what’s your deepest, darkest secret?’
She coughed over her drink and smiled.
‘Come on, Frank. The whole my-partner-is-my-soulmate thing has been seriously overcooked by Law and Order, don’t you think? We don’t have to be intimate to be effective.’
‘I want to be intimate with you.’ I grinned.
‘Uh huh.You’ll get over that.’
‘I’ll tell you mine.’
‘I don’t want to know yours.’
Fox captures the snappy incisiveness of the police world with cutting dialogue and believable anguish.
Eden and Bennett become embroiled in the hunt for a serial killer who performs organ transplants on his victims. He is Jason Beck, ‘The Body Snatcher’. His sick vocation is vividly depicted through gruesome details of his transplant operation donors:
The pathologist lifted a sheet from a body at the end of the row. I stared at the bloodless cavity in a young woman’s torso where some part of her had been removed.
While searching for the body farmer, Bennett also tries to get to the heart of what happened to Erin’s previous partner – his predecessor, Doyle, who was shot on the job. Eric warns him off trying to unravel the mysterious circumstances surrounding this death but again Bennett pays no heed.
The constant threat of danger pushes the intricate plot into unmapped territory. Fox names big issues – nature, Darwinism, natural selection – but does not ruminate on them, choosing instead to allow these ideas to pepper the landscape of the gritty world she has created. The stories of past and present creep towards each other with an energy that is at once captivating and sickening – leading to an unexpected yet hideously logical climax.
Candice Fox Hades Bantam 2014 PB 352pp $29.99
Lou Murphy is the author of the crime novel, Squealer, and has worked a mix of jobs including on the Sydney dockyards, in crime reporting and in hospitality: https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/LouMurphy
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I thoroughly enjoyed Hades and this is just a fabulous review!
Just finished reading Hades and absolutely loved it – couldn’t put it down!