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This is a disturbing, rip-roaring read of a book which starts by lulling you in a false sense of security. Opening with waves of Dylanesque language - with a policeman who ‘dreams of topless gypsy dancers, and wondering if he’d caught anything from a tasselled Andalucian nipple dunked in his wine glass’ and a character called simply Stillness - one might be forgiven that this is going to be a parody of the great man’s prose style.
The main character, Martin, has just moved to west Wales with his poet wife, Rachel. He ís going for a career change as a private detective, not that there’s much call for it thereabouts. Sleuth-work is required to find a missing shed, however. So the reader thinks, ah yes, Raymond Chandler in Ceredigion. Duped so far. Nothing can prepare you for the biliously black tale of serial murder and unbridled nastiness which follows.
The plot revolves around Waldo, the illegitimate son of someone or other, maybe a poet. He lives in a dilapidated farmhouse, called Fern Hill. An old Corona lemonade bottle with a tapered, unstoppered neck in one of the rooms contains a ‘live wren, gasping for breath in the thin, warm air that managed to drop down to the bottom’. Our first glimpse of Waldo himself finds him bending down into the bath with ‘something wriggling in his mouth. He turned away and spat into the lavatory bowl. He went back to the bath and leaned over, stretching down inside. He came back up. There was a large brown spider between his lips.’ This is just a hint of the unspeakable cruelty to follow. Waldo makes Hannibal Lecter seems like a custodian of morality, a real pussycat. He’s a sociopath and old fashioned nut-case and what he gets up to is the true stuff of nightmares. As it follows his trail of blood, The Dylan Thomas Murders also takes few gentle sideways swings at the changed ways of Welsh country living, where people eat seafood ciabattas and lust over inglenooks.
The Dylan Thomas Murders is a filmic book - cinematically structured and vividly written. As with so many horror movies there’s a thrill in the tail, the shock that comes just after the all-clear. The plot is delivered with panache and energy. It is a book about the dangers of parentage, the inadequacies of poets and why you should always carry a machete with you. Consider yourself warned.
Jon Gower
It is possible to use this review for promotional purposes, but the following acknowledgment should be included: A review from www.gwales.com, with the permission of the Welsh Books Council.
Gellir defnyddio'r adolygiad hwn at bwrpas hybu, ond gofynnir i chi gynnwys y gydnabyddiaeth ganlynol: Adolygiad oddi ar www.gwales.com, trwy ganiatâd Cyngor Llyfrau Cymru.
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