Published by Orenda Books. Many thanks to Karen Sullivan and team for the opportunity to review this chilling supernatural mystery.
Michael Malone is a prize-winning poet and author who was born and brought up in the heart of Burns’ country in Scotland. He has published over 200 poems in literary magazines throughout the UK, including New Writing Scotland, Poetry Scotland and Markings. "Blood Tears", his bestselling debut novel, won the Pitlochry Prize from the Scottish Association of Writers.
"The Murmurs", first in the Annie Jackson Mysteries series, was published to critical acclaim in 2023. "The Torments" is the second book in the series.
Much of the allure of "The Torments" is wondering what is real, and how much is myth made real by those who believe. Malone juxtaposes both to powerful effect. The Prologue relates a fearsome legend; that of the "Baobhan Sith".
Baobhan Sith is Scottish Gaelic and actually means “Fairy Woman”. The Baobhan Sidhe (pl.) are a race of very beautiful looking monsters, who take the form of beautiful young women often wearing green dresses. Their long green dresses hide the fact that their legs and feet are that of deer.
Whether the Sith is real or not is not important. For centuries, people have believed in the fairy woman, and the monstrous crimes they commit to call her forth continue to the present day.
In Chapter 1, we meet protagonist Annie Jackson. All her life, she has heard and seen things she cannot explain. Mocking laughter. Sibilant whispers. Clamoring voices. Ghastly images of foretold death imposed on the faces of strangers. Annie calls them her "torments". In "The Murmurs", Annie helped the police solve the mystery of "the bodies in the Glen" at the risk of her own life. This case brought Annie such unwanted publicity that in "The Torments", she has moved to an isolated cottage in the remote highlands of Scotland.
The thick stone walls of her cottage help to block out the incessant voices. But whenever Annie thinks about leaving, she recalls:
"The last time she went to work they’d started up the moment she turned the key in the car. With the surge of the engine came the build-up of aural insanity, and by the time she’d reached the road-end she was close to being a sobbing wreck."
"Aural insanity". What a terrifying phrase, and an apt description of Annie's lifelong burden. She believes her torments are a curse and would do anything to be rid of them.
The central mystery of "The Torments" begins when Mandy, Annie's adopted mother, calls her for help. Mandy's sister Chrissie is frantic about Damien, her son, who has disappeared. Now Mandy is calling Annie to see if she will use her "powers" to help find Damien. Although he's had a troubled past since he was a teenager, the birth of his son Bodie seemed to turn his life around. Separated from Bodie's mother, he only sees his son for two hours a week...but he never misses a visit. When he fails to pick Bodie up, Chrissie is convinced that something is wrong.
Annie struggles painfully with Mandy's request for help. Even just talking to Mandy on the phone, Annie's voices return with a vengeance:
The murmurs surged. Sibilant consonants and long vowels in an unintelligible cacophony. Growling. Pleading. Mocking. Urging. Raging. Fury given sound.
However, family ties run deep and Annie finds it hard to refuse Chrissie's request. She teams up with her brother Lewis to investigate Damien's disappearance. Curiously, Lewis and Annie discover if she carries a small stone taken from her cottage's hearth, it helps to quell the voices even when she leaves her lonely refuge.
Malone further infuses the book with the twisted and supernatural when he introduces Ben and Sylvia, a menacing young twosome. Malone captures Ben as a child in a single sentence:
"Ben hated everyone when he first met them, and it was only when he was older he realised that this was simply so he could save time."
Ben's neglectful parents are wary of him, for good reason. They sent him at a very young age to live at the Clevelland boarding school. A young boy without a conscience, he revels in the power he feels by frightening other students.
We then meet Sylvia, who was also sent to Clevelland by her fearsome Grandmama, in 1965:
And it was there that she found herself at a desk, sitting beside a solid and strange little boy who whispered to her, ‘I’m going to make you cry.’
The "solid and strange little boy" is Ben, and Sylvia never cries. An orphan, Sylvia was raised by her grandmother, who held seances in which she and Sylvia communed with Sylvia's mother. When Sylvia complains about being bullied by a girl at school, her mother "tells her" what to do. Shortly afterwards, Sylvia is bullied no more.
This disturbing pair's bond is strengthened by Clevelland Professor Phineas Dance. A year after Sylvia arrives at the school, Dance calls her and Ben into his office and changes their lives forever. He tells them that from now on, they will secretly devote their lives to a mysterious organization called "The Order". This fits in well with Ben and Sylvia's lack of conscience and feelings of superiority; they have always known that they are destined for great things. Although they appear in the book later as adults, Malone cleverly masks Ben and Sylvia's true identities.
In the present, Annie and Lewis dive into Damien's disappearance. They interview his mother, childhood friends, and Alison, the mother of his child from whom he is separated. They find out that something happened to Damien when he was 16 that turned his promising future into a life of crime and substance abuse. One of his good friends was killed in a car accident that year, but whether his death or something else more sinister affected Damien so negatively is unknown.
At the same time, Annie is having strange dreams about a woman in green, and is strongly drawn to an old building called Summerhill Hall (formerly "Gallows Hill".) She learns that a woman who calls herself "Gaia" lives there and offers refuge to women who are having a hard time. Annie's powerful attraction to Summerhill plays an important part in the story and enhances the mythic aspects of the book.
Annie and Lewis begin to uncover the connections between Damien and the other characters. Their quest becomes more dangerous and both are threatened. There are powerful forces at work here, and Malone's skill in blending reality and myth is impressive. He uses the strong influence that legends have had upon humanity for hundreds of years to expand his book beyond the mystery at its center. In "The Torments", Malone also illuminates how stories told centuries ago are still a part of our lives today. It makes for a rich and satisfying read in which ancient beliefs and present realities chillingly bleed into each other. Having thoroughly enjoyed "The Torments", I now look forward to reading "The Murmurs".
As always, please buy/order these and other books by Michael J. Malone at your local independent bookstore or go to Bookshop.org and order there!
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