The genre we call action / mystery/ detective / thriller fiction is ascendant these days, no question about that. It interested me to see that Kostoff’s work is specifically labelled “crime” fiction. In the traditional murder mystery, there is a corpse, and CSI people and detectives, public and private, try to find out who killed the dead person. Motives are explored, and usually one suspect after another is brought forward and then rejected.
Kostoff’s work is not like that. There are deaths, to be sure, but as the plot unfolds, exactly who did it becomes not the point. The process is not sequential; instead of a line of inquiry, we become aware of a web of connections, mostly hidden and many unsavory.
The book is set in fictional Magnolia Beach, South Carolina. Elderly Samuel Fulton, on his way to visit his aging wife in a nursing home, is driving down a residential street one afternoon when a woman runs out of a house towards his car, chased by a thug who catches her, savagely breaks her neck in front of Samuel and runs away.
Immediately two other women run from the house, the building catches fire, and we learn 10 other women were locked inside and burned to death. That is the precipitating crime. Who were those women? Almost certainly prostitutes. Why were they all there? The house was not a brothel. Were they in transit? To where?
In a series of short chapters we are introduced to the young reporter, Pam Graves, who covers the event, Carl Adkin, a policeman who is investigating, Arturo Morales, who works at the nursing home, and a variety of small business owners, hustlers and public officials in Magnolia Beach.
Each of these people has secrets to keep and ambitions that need feeding. Some have histories they would prefer remain hidden. None can be trusted absolutely. The town fathers, especially those in the tourist bureau, don’t really care if the crime is solved. They just want it to go away. Newspaper reports on murder and prostitution are bad for the tourist business.
Officer Adkin investigates but not in the pursuit of justice. Adkin lives in a dark gray area; part extortionist, he is a purveyor of information among various criminals—drug dealers, human traffickers. He is an interesting study in the power of rationalization. Sworn to uphold the law, he excuses his own corrupt behavior because he provides a better life for his family.
Who owned the house with the dead women? In Magnolia Beach it is easy to learn who owns souvenir shops and diners, but the owners of massage parlors are difficult to trace through public records. There are layers of shell corporations. The heartless racketeers running the prostitution ring lost 13 women: property, slaves, as far as they were concerned. They don’t care about justice; they want restitution.
