The Edge of Normal

By Carla NortonMinotaur, 2013

Alex

By Pierre Lemaitre, trans. from the French by Frank WynneQuercus/MacLehose, 2013Mystery fiction abounds with cases of child abduction and abuse. These books portray children as victims of systematic psychological and physical molestation in every savage variation. Murders often are perpetrated in order to hide the fact of child abuse. Frequently it is the individual responsible for the care of the child or children that become their abusers instead. Similarly, incest in all its grisly variations, is depicted as occurring all too often within an outwardly respectable family. In many crime novels, incest is practiced by the character with the most impeccable credentials. Art imitating life.In Jonathan Kellerman’s When the Bough Breaks (1985), a prominent child psychologist has helps sell the sexual favors of orphaned children to pedophiles. In Elizabeth George’s A Great Deliverance (1988), a religious family man who secretly abused his daughters is murdered. P.D. James pays particular attention to the psychological state of the abuser and the pattern of repetition that turns abused children into adult murderers. Mary Ducton in Innocent Blood (1980) and Dominic Swayne in A Taste for Death (1986) are each victims who become killers. Juvenile maltreatment is handled particularly well in two novels that were published in 1995. In Under the Beetle’s Cellar by Mary Willis Walker, Samuel Mordecai and his followers abduct from a school bus eleven children and their driver, a Vietnam veteran. Jeffrey Deaver’s A Maiden’s Grave begins with a group of hardened criminals kidnapping eight deaf children and their teachers, again from a school bus. Both books derive much of their strength from the description of the authorities’ race against time to free the captives before they are killed.Carla Norton’s The Edge of Normal is about a woman kidnapped when she was 12 and held for four years. During that time she endured unimaginable torture at the hands of a psychopath, Daryl Wayne Flint. Her escape was nothing short of a miracle. Under a new name, Reeve LeClaire, she has spent the last six years trying to rebuild her life. She has her own apartment in San Francisco and is working as a waitress to pay the bills. Her recovery is thanks in large part to her formidable therapist Dr. Ezra Lerner, a leading authority on “captivity syndrome.” Now Dr. Lerner needs Reeve’s help in treating Tilly Cavanaugh, a 13-year-old found a year after her kidnapping in Jefferson City, California. But the media blitz surrounding Tilly’s release threatens to shatter Reeve’s fragile grip on daily life. Lerner’s request unleashes a tirade from her:

It’s just that the whole damn media machine is gearing up. And you can see what’s coming. All those talking heads, who have no right to be pontificating, who can hardly pronounce captivity syndrome, who haven’t spent five minutes trying to understand a damn thing about what abduction really means, are already all over the news reading off names of victims and their captors like some sick shopping list. Like we’re celebrities with no privacy. While all those caged monsters are salivating in their cells, getting off on the fact that their sick psycho-brothers are out here roaming the streets and doing their disgusting, twisted, evil shit…. And they’re already showing my old photos on the air and making comparisons…. I’m back in the news and everything is back in the news and now I’m having to confront all those images and those memories of Daryl Wayne Flint all over again!

Dr. Lerner’s response to this is “Wow! That was good.” He reminds her of what she was like when he first saw her.

She had been raped, beaten, burned, whipped, starved and nearly drowned. She thought she would die. She wished it....“I was like a Zombie.”“That’s right. Nothing elicited much more than a shrug…. Well Tilly Cavanaugh is in a similar state now.”“Post-traumatic shock.”“Absolutely, for starters, that’s correct.”

In the final analysis, she cannot refuse Lerner. Once she meets Tilly, she is hooked on helping her. For one thing, Reeve’s abductor has been put away and the creep who took Tilly is still out there. He is watching her every move and that of her family. It has Tilly in a state of abject terror. We’re not far behind. Norton creates a character that is evil incarnate. As she fleshes out this monster, she evokes a sense of mounting dread. And talk about impeccable credentials, he’s got them! Plus he’s got a body count that would make Jeffrey Dahmer envious.The more Tilly confides in her, the greater Reeves’ awareness that she must call on a reserve of hidden strength born of her ordeal to protect her. As Carla Norton describes her in a recent Publishers Weekly interview,

She has endured so much that she has an underlying toughness. She’s damaged but uniquely courageous, perhaps a bit like Lisbeth Salander. …Reeve isn’t a cop or a spy. She’s driven by her inner demons.

As a great admirer of Salander, I wish she hadn’t become every author’s favorite psychopath. Reeve is fascinating in her own right. The comparison doesn’t do either character justice. Norton draws you into a chilling and engrossing world. And the ending is a shocker that packs a whole panoply of solar plexus punches.The Edge of Normal is a compelling, stylish debut thriller that you won’t soon forget. Unfortunately it’s all too relevant. As Reeve puts it, “sexual predators don’t ask for ransom…. There are no negotiations. The person taken is their prize.”Reeve LeClaire and the eponymous heroine of Alex by Pierre Lemaitre are both kidnap victims. Otherwise, they have very little in common. For one thing, Alex is a beautiful thirty-year-old woman when she is abducted. For another, her modus operandi is more Grand Guignol than goody two-shoes.When the novel begins, Alex is being held captive in an abandoned warehouse in Paris. She has been savagely beaten and is suspended from the ceiling in a wooden cage with large rats for company. Apart from a shaky eyewitness report, Police Commandant Camille Verhoeven has nothing to go on, no suspect, no leads. As he says, “Kidnapping is a singular crime: unlike murder the victim is not present; you have to imagine them.”The case has special resonance for Verhoeven as his pregnant wife was kidnapped and murdered four years ago and he is still tormented by her death. But this quirky diminutive cop, four feet eleven, has the tenacity of a pit bull and the arrogance of Napoleon. His motley crew in crime fighting are as eccentric as they are formidable. They vow to leave no cobblestone unturned in their quest to find and save the girl. Up to this point, Alex is a straightforward thriller—a massive manhunt, a race against time, a damsel in distress, a hood with a hidden agenda. It’s all pure cat and mouse.Except that it isn’t. Almost without warning we get turned upside down and inside out. We’re on a Hitchcockian roller coaster and nothing, absolutely nothing is what it seems. To reveal any more of the plot would be criminal. Suffice it to say, Lemaitre aces the art of the narrative curveball. He gives new meaning to the tried and true “unexpected twist.” He is a master of misdirection, a la Agatha Christie.He is also a wizard at creating memorable characters. Each one, no matter how minor, adds a new dimension to the story. They interact with gusto and humor and while some will appall you, all will engage you. Of course the most mesmerizing character is Alex. As a fellow reviewer at Raven Crime Reads put it “…she makes Lisbeth Salander look like Mary Poppins,” which doesn’t tell you as much as you think. Any predictable emotional response as her true nature is laid bare will lead you astray. It’s what makes this dark and harrowing novel succeed so brilliantly.Special kudos to the translator, Frank Wynne. The prose is seamless and fluid, adding a graceful dimension to the subtleties of Lemaitre’s sharp and savvy plot. There is not a wrong note in this gripping thriller that will keep you in suspense until the very last page. And leave you with this provocative thought: “Who’s to say what’s true and what isn’t…what’s important is not truth, it’s justice—right?”____Irma Heldman is a veteran publishing executive and book reviewer with a penchant for mysteries. One of her favorite gigs was her magazine column “On the Docket” under the pseudonym O. L. Bailey.