A young collector is offered the chance to obtain an original manuscript of Chaucer’s The Pardoner’s Tale from Hydrant, a mysterious bookseller. Before he can negotiate a price he first has to agree to listen to the vendor’s strange tale of the seemingly eternal Ahasuerus and his arduous adventures across time. (For those up to speed with their 13th century legends, the appearance of the name Ahasuerus will give a clear clue as to the set up of this novel. Otherwise known as the Wandering Jew, Ahasuerus is the name of a man said to have taunted Jesus as he made his way to his place of crucifixion and then been cursed to walk the earth until the second coming.) Inside the claustrophobic city shop, decorated with an otherwise unseen version of Edvard Munch’s The Scream, Hydrant spins a story that begins as an Inuit folk tale and evolves to take in the Battle of Poitiers, the Great Fire of London and more. With guest appearances from René Descartes, Sigmund Freud and Geoffrey Chaucer himself, BROKEN VESSELS is packed full of time-bending intrigue and incident.
Trevor McCall is a capable and versatile writer who has previously written more gentle, romantic novels. BROKEN VESSELS demonstrates he has the ability to turn his hand to the thriller and mystery genres and he has created an engaging and intelligent novel. The evocation of the plague ridden city in which the bookshop is located is effective and striking, as is the description of the shop itself with its unnatural lighting and the oppressive, incessant secondhand smoke of its owner. The more fanciful, historic locations are less well handled and it is occasionally difficult to understand exactly where the characters are located from page to page. That said, the novel runs on a kind of strange dream logic where time and place are elastic concepts so a little narrative confusion could be seen to add to the effect.
In some ways BROKEN VESSELS is reminiscent of the New Wave of science-fiction of the late 1960s and early 1970s when writers like Moorcock and Aldiss exacted literary experiments from within a populist genre form. Indeed, the main problem with the book is that it seems caught between wanting to be a Borgesian literary conundrum and a Dan Brown style conspiracy thriller and McCall never fully commits to either. Though what is included suggests that the author is more than capable of conjuring a bold, philosophical mystery populated by real historical figures he never quite pushes far enough in that direction and the straight action sequences don’t quite carry the kick required for a simple genre thriller. Though not completely successful, the author should be applauded for his experimentation and BLOOD VESSELS is promising enough to mark McCall as one to watch if he continues writing speculative fiction.
Trevor McCall skillfully weaves an inventive plot from intricate and delicate narrative threads that eventually snare the reader with some deftly concealed twists in BROKEN VESSELS, an ambitious time-bending novel.
~Kent Lane for IndieReader