FEAR THE DARKNESS
By Becky Masterman
322 pages. Minotaur Books. $25.99.
Becky Masterman’s first book, “Rage Against the Dying” (2013), introduced a highly original heroine for a detective series. She was Brigid Quinn, an ex-F.B.I. agent old enough to be mistaken for a fragile granny by a sexual predator, who spied her out hiking one day and tried to shove her into his van. Boy, was that sexual predator ever sorry. At 59, Brigid had a white ponytail and a walking stick — but she also had 40 years’ worth of vigorous conditioning and a wicked way of fighting. That walking stick came equipped with a razor blade.
Since everything about Ms. Masterman’s debut was that sharp, she made an impressive entrance into the world of mystery writing. “Rage Against the Dying” wound up nominated for Edgar, Gold Dagger and Macavity Awards. And Brigid became the most original new female character to anchor a crime series in years. Now she returns for a second go-round in “Fear the Darkness,” another strong display of the author’s ingenuity. This novel is no replay of the first.
“Rage Against the Dying” sent Brigid on the trail of a serial killer. The desert climate of Tucson, where the stories are set and both Brigid and Ms. Masterson live, played a special role in that book (it could mummify), and it does in this new one, too: Killing a cactus in Arizona turns out to be a very expensive driving infraction. And “Fear the Darkness” does not initially seem to be about anything very heinous, even if it begins with the clichéd blunt, violent prologue. Brigid is trapped in a dark, baking-hot place, imagining the details of her own autopsy.
Ms. Masterman doesn’t need cheap tricks. Her book’s real beginning doesn’t need a boost. Brigid is on her way home from a shelter for women, having shown them how to stop an abusive mate with a hard blow to the liver, when she gets the news that one of her sisters has died. And although the Quinns are famously difficult, Brigid is asked to take in her sister’s 17-year-old daughter, Gemma-Kate.
“I pictured you taller,” says the surly niece, who is being sent to Arizona from Florida because she wants to attend the University of Arizona, not because Brigid has any mothering skills. Brigid never had children, married her second husband (Carlo, an ex-priest) at 58 and has no patience for a kid who appears to have a sinister side. Ms. Masterson scatters abundant evidence that Gemma-Kate is sneaky, can’t be trusted and may be the reason one of Brigid and Carlo’s two beloved pugs nearly dies from some kind of poison extracted from a toad.
Luckily, Brigid has a best friend, Mallory, to whom she can vent about absolutely anything. Brigid, who loves to hike, and Mallory, who would much rather drink and shop, find enough common ground to spend much of their time together. They go out for long liquid lunches. They gossip and share secrets. If Brigid is burdened with this sullen, possibly dangerous niece, Mallory has a husband who was grievously injured when their car stalled on railroad tracks and was hit by a train. Their bedroom has been turned into a virtual hospital room, and Mallory does her share of taking care of him, even though the only way he can communicate is by blinking his eyes.
Two more things drive this book through its involving, if not electrifying, first half. One is the mysterious death of a teenage boy named Joe, who drowned in his family’s swimming pool and is rumored to have been involved in autoerotic activity when he slipped underwater. Brigid, in her capacity as private investigator, agrees to help the parents investigate their child’s death, but this investigation becomes very ticklish. That Joe was gay and very unpopular with his schoolmates may be relevant here, but there’s not much evidence to go on.
And Joe’s stepfather, Tim, is openly repelled by the boy’s sexuality — or so he says. In any case, the fact that Tim is a doctor becomes very important once “Fear the Darkness” steps on the gas. Brigid has felt increasingly strange throughout the story, and she’s terrified by symptoms like sudden blindness, deafness and paralysis, not to mention vivid hallucinations. She thinks these may be only her medical problems, even after the entire group gathered at a parish hall after a Sunday sermon becomes violently ill — because someone has dumped antifreeze into the coffee.
As the strange symptoms and signs of poisoning begin to mount, “Fear the Darkness” suddenly becomes a faster, much more devious book. The reader has no reason to notice a lot of minor interactions that, in retrospect, look very important.
Enough about Ms. Masterson’s storytelling, except to say that her book’s later stages are easily its best and well worth waiting for. For anyone who fears that Brigid seems a pale shadow of the first book’s powerhouse, that’s exactly the effect the author is after. And she is not about to deliver a book without Brigid in true fighting form.
Ms. Masterman once again shows herself to be an expert manipulator of readers’ expectations. She also slyly changes the way some of her characters are perceived as the story moves along, and she’s particularly good at slipping those changes past notice.
As for where she’s ready to take this carefully constructed book, her research gives the best answer: She has consulted experts in drowning, toxicology, radiology, pacemaker identification, clean sheet maggots, forensics, guns, martial arts, the logistics of mass homicide and the society fund-raiser. As for how she knows about Arizona’s $10,000 fine for killing a cactus, she’s not saying.
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