by Katie Burnie
Now You Bleed
Gareth Crocker
(Penguin Random House SA)
The duo of Ruben Ellis and his partner Zander Malan are back in Gareth Crocker’s second book in the Ruben Ellis thriller series.
And they are back with a bang, or perhaps more accurately a flare. Neither of the detectives is overly thrilled to be called to the case of a police sergeant, Baldwin, who wakes up handcuffed to the steering wheel of his police vehicle, which is parked at Wemmer Pan in Joburg. He is not alone, a man named John Morton is with him and lets him know exactly how he is going to die. It’s a brave author who tells the reader who the killer is in the prologue. The reason for the killing is obscure, but John Morton has an explanation for his victim: “The sergeant’s voice trembled. “A-Are you ... going to kill me?”
“No, not going to. Already have ... The reason you are blind is because a number of toxins have been released into your body. They’ve already destroyed your optic nerves. Any moment now you’ll go into cardiac arrest and your heart will stop beating.”
So we know who the killer is; the reader also quickly perceives that he is a serial killer who has killed many, many people. And he has a son, Jack, whose mom has left the boy with his father. Morton is a respected professor and a man of brilliance.
Fans of Crocker’s will be pleased to have the oddball backup of Mara, who is looking after Ruben’s daughter Kayla, and Melissa Grove, the whack job of a wonderful counsellor.
Now You Bleed falls between a thriller and a police procedural. It’s fast-paced, intelligent and addictive.
This is not Crocker’s first rodeo, apart from Now You Bleed and Now You Suffer he is also the author of Finding Jack, Journey from Darkness, Never Let Go, King, The Last Road Trip and My Name is Finn Jupiter.
What made him want to write novels? Crocker says: “The film Rocky actually. It had a profound effect on my young mind. After watching the movie, all my friends wanted to become world champion boxers. I wanted to write stories that moved people the same way that Rocky moved me. I was a different person when I came out of that cinema.” It’s a real Crocker answer. I am pretty sure that not many people saw Rocky and came out wanting to write novels.
Ruben and Zander hand off some wonderful lines; in the middle of really gruesome crime scenes I laughed out loud when Ruben says that snakes don’t usually use handcuffs on their victims. That type of interchange between characters drew me through both of the novels. How easy is it to conjure up fully fleshed characters? Do they live in your head? Crocker says: “Some of my characters take a while to develop while others arrive almost fully formed. Melissa is a case in point. One day she was just this vague silhouette of a woman and the next I knew exactly who she was. The more time I spend with my characters, the more they take the wheel. I often feel like I’m just some kind of glorified typist, channelling their voices. And yes, all my characters live in my head. Even long after their stories have been told. Rogan, from my first novel, Finding Jack, lives a fairly tragic life now as a night shift security guard at a chemical factory. He was on his own for many years, until another one of my characters came to join him. Yes, it’s all very weird I know …"
Apart from the characters, Joburg itself becomes a character; you can feel the grit and the house that Morton and his son live in feels to the reader as if it is a living — or perhaps more accurately — a dying entity. If you know Joburg you will feel right at home in the shabby police station.
So with clever plotting, a horrific story of cruelty and generational evil, there are moments of humanity and, as I said earlier, humour. Does Crocker love some of his characters more: “Oh, absolutely. Every writer has their favourites. Melissa’s dialogue, in particular, was an absolute joy to write. I also love Zander’s dry wit. I probably shouldn’t admit this, but I found myself laughing at all my own jokes …"
With exceptional plotting and a real sense of Joburg, and the just ever so slightly hammered circumstances our police force have to work under, this book is a tour de force and I don’t say that lightly.
Every time the cops get close, things slither away from them. Woven into the action there are real human struggles and traumas all the characters have and are still experiencing. So often thrillers are just about action, but this one has humanity woven through it. There is plenty of horror and cruelty, but there is redemption in complex relationships. In friendship and parenthood, and the issue of generational trauma that can make people turn out good or bad, or very, very bad.
Now You Bleed is a tour de force of a novel. I loved every word. It’s an ideal gift for a holiday read or just for someone who loves writers who can write people and send thrills up their spine.
I hope there will be a third in the series.
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