The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells

First published in 1896

The Island of Dr Moreau is H.G. Wells’ novel about a mad scientist who takes the idea of anthropomorphizing animals to an extreme. It is a horror story, but it explores a number of philosophical questions as the horror unfolds.

Edward Prendick, a biologist, is near death when he is rescued from a lifeboat after being forced to abandon ship. When he recovers his senses, he finds himself on a schooner with a drunken captain, a doctor named Montgomery, a deformed man who attends the doctor, a caged puma, and an angry pack of muzzled dogs.

Montgomery, having been booted out of medical school in London, is on his way to an isolated island. Through no fault of his own, Prendick is booted off the ship, leaving him with no choice but to join Montgomery on the island.

The island, of course, is home to the mysterious Dr. Moreau. It’s probably impossible to spoil a story this old, but I won’t say much more about the plot, except to note that Prendick encounters creatures who are “human in shape, and yet human beings with the strangest air about them of some familiar animal. Each of these creatures, despite its human form, its rag of clothing, and the rough humanity of its bodily form, had woven into it, into its movements, into the expression of its countenance, into its whole presence, some now irresistible suggestion of a hog, a swinish taint, the unmistakable mark of the beast.”

That quotation gives you a sense of Wells’ prose style which, to readers raised on genre authors who write eight word sentences and three sentence paragraphs, might seem laborious. Perhaps it is, but it is a style uniquely Wells’ own.

Prendick discovers that human-like beasts on the island are (rather reluctantly) following a set of laws. Transgressions are enforced by punishment that is “sharp and sure.” But, just as the promise of swift punishment does little to deter criminal behavior or misbehaving children, threatening to punish beasts who eat the flesh of other animals (or humans) isn’t likely to change their nature. And like all systems of punishment-based law, the system does no good if those who violate the law are not caught.

Philosophical questions that the novel raises include the difference between man and beast and the justice of a system that forces the island’s inhabitants to live in fear of laws they do not understand. The novel could be viewed as an allegory of legal systems and particularly of religious law, where obedience is coerced by instilling fear of punishment by a higher power. It can also be seen as an indictment of totalitarian government, where the “sayer of the law” uses ruthless tactics to dictate obedience among the masses, who are viewed as incapable of governing themselves (or whose self-governance is feared). And the novel can be seen as a caution against attempts to replace the natural with the unnatural, perhaps a forerunner of the debate about genetic engineering. On a simpler level, while the novel isn’t very frightening when viewed as a horror story, it is an entertaining tale, made all the more interesting by convincing characters, both man and beast (and in-between).

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War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells

First published in 1898

One of the characters in War of the Worlds talks about how people live their lives in fear. They buy insurance because they fear catastrophe. They work at jobs they hate because they fear a loss of security. They scurry home and stay indoors because they are afraid of the dark. On Sundays they fear the hereafter. They want only “safety in their one little miserable skedaddle through the world.” Now they have something real to fear -- Martians. Even after the invasion, some will be happy to be caught and caged, because to “submit to persecution and the will of the Lord” is easy, and what people really fear is thinking for themselves.

I think that little speech by a soldier in the second part of War of the Worlds highlights one of the novel’s best themes. You’re either content to be a rabbit in a cage or you have the will to take risks. The soldier thinks that most people can’t be saved from the Martians but most aren’t worth saving. Knowledge and ideas are worth saving, the sum of human accomplishment. With time and rescued knowledge, humankind will be able to fight the Martians (or so the soldier hopes), to stage a comeback after a devastating defeat. But is that realistic or is it folly? The book’s narrator calls the soldier a “strange undisciplined dreamer of great things,” but perhaps those are the people we should strive to be in time of crisis.

Focused myopically on their own lives, early twentieth century humans failed to appreciate that Martians might exist or that humans might have something Martians would desire: a healthy planet. Mars and the life it sustains are coming to an end. The Martians want Earth.

The narrator of War of the Worlds is curious when a cylindrical object crashes near his home. He’s still curious when the top unscrews and creatures with tentacles scramble into the crater that was created by their crashing vessel. He’s vexed when the creatures assemble a heat ray that systematically sets trees, buildings, and people on fire. Fortunately, the sweep of the heat ray is not extensive (hiding behind the nearest hill provides adequate protection) so the narrator assumes the military will make short work of the Martians. That assumption gives way to panic when more cylinders fall and mechanized tripods begin to wander about, deploying heat rays and poisonous black clouds to wipe out cities and their defenses.

As you probably know, the Martians kick human butt for most of the novel. War of the Worlds is about badly behaving Martians, but it is also about badly behaving humans. Running from the Martians, people trample each other, throw each other from escaping boats, take advantage of weakness, and generally put their own lives above everyone else’s. The narrator’s brother is an exception, and there are a few others, including the soldier mentioned at the beginning of this review, but Wells’ view of mankind as a whole is rather dim. The epilogue, on the other hand, suggests an optimistic vision of the future.

Most people who have not read The War of the Worlds probably know how it ends, but I won’t spoil it for those who don’t. I will say only that the ending is a testament not only to Wells’ vivid imagination, but to his understanding that human beings (and even Martians) are not necessarily the most powerful entities in this vast universe. It is only hubris that makes us (or Martians) believe we thrive and survive because we are superior. Wells makes clear that humility always defeats hubris. That is the other timeless theme that makes The War of the Worlds an enduring contribution to the history of literature.

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The Hanging Club by Tony Parsons

First published in the U.K. in 2016; published by Minotaur Books on November 1, 2016

“What’s wrong with a bit of revenge?” asks a curator at the Crime Museum who keeps track of the ropes that were used to hang shoplifters and more nefarious criminals before England did away with capital punishment. That’s also the question on the minds of Londoners as they watch bad guys being executed on YouTube.

In the prologue to The Hanging Club, a small group of men execute (by hanging) a Pakistani taxi driver who just finished a relatively light sentence for his role in a gang that sexually assaulted young girls. A video of the hanging, accompanied by the hashtag #bringitback, goes viral. A good share of London’s population believes that the cab driver had it coming.

DC Max Wolfe, who has a little girl of his own, is assigned to investigate the hanging. He’s soon investigating additional hangings, some of the victims less obviously deserving of public outrage — although it doesn’t take much to stir outrage, even in stoic England.

The theme of retribution also shows up in a couple of collateral plotlines. One involves a man who was beaten to death by two young men as a third recorded the crime on his phone. The assailants receive an improbably short sentence (hence the desire for retribution). The other involves a police detective whose son was blinded by thugs. Both plot threads seem forced — contrivances that advance the plot rather than realistic events.

Another subplot involves Wolfe’s childhood BFF who is now living on the street. The reader is asked to decide whether the friend is a good guy or a bad guy, or a mixture of both. That subplot is also a bit forced, but it serves to personalize the retribution theme for Wolfe. A final subplot involving Wolfe’s attraction to a deaf specialist in voice analysis adds moderate interest to the story.

Vigilantism is often the product of fear. Unfortunately, fear and vigilantism both destroy the bonds that hold a civilized society together. “It was as if nobody could be trusted any more, as if the world had gone insane, as if you never knew who might want to dance on your grave.” Those thoughts are in Wolfe's head as London anti-terrorist police refuse to take their boots off the back of his neck, even after he has identified himself as a Detective Constable, because they fear he might be a terrorist.

The world of thrillers makes heroes of vigilantes, but too few thrillers spotlight the hypocrisy of people who think murder is justifiable if murders are committed for the right reasons. The story invites readers to consider whether private retribution is acceptable when vigilantes are dissatisfied with the punishment imposed by the criminal justice system. A shocking number of people seem to believe that trials and due process are “politically correct” values that shouldn't apply to people they categorically dislike. Defenders of vigilantism used to form lynch mobs. How much progress society has made (British or American) is a question the book invites readers to ponder.

I’m not sure The Hanging Club tackles these issues with much depth, but it does explore both sides by demonstrating that the rule of law is what saves society from anarchy, while acknowledging that people become understandably frustrated when they feel that the rule of law has let them down. The story gives readers the chance to make up their own mind about whether lynch mobs have anything to do with justice. It also allows readers to appreciate the conflict that Wolfe feels as he upholds the law in the face of angry people who think he’s on the wrong side when he pursues vigilantes.

Apart from its interesting development of a timely social issue and a multifaceted protagonist, The Hanging Club delivers an entertaining action story that is peppered with intriguing conflict among key characters. The ending contains a nice surprise. This isn’t an “edge of my seat” thriller, but it’s worth reading both as an engaging story and as a novel that makes readers think about important questions.

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Hunters in the Dark by Lawrence Osborne

Published in Great Britain in 2015; published by Crown Publishing/Hogarth on January 12, 2016

Hunters in the dark are hunting for happiness or advantage. They are in the dark because they don’t know exactly what they are hunting.

Robert Grieve, a British teacher on his summer vacation, crosses the border from Thailand to Cambodia and has a run of luck in a casino. His luck changes when he meets an American named Simon Beauchamp. Robert ignores his driver’s warning to decline Simon’s invitation to stay at his home. Suffice it to say that Robert experiences a life-changing event, or at least he chooses to respond to the event by changing his life.

After making his way to Phnom Penh, Robert takes a job tutoring a physician’s daughter in English. To get the gig, he adopts a new identity and tells a series of elaborate lies. The temptation to disappear into a new life, at least for a while, seems impossible to resist. Thus Robert becomes a hunter in the dark.

People who drift through life often drift into trouble, or at least that’s a standard message that thrillers deliver. The plot follows Robert as he drifts from one problem to another, ultimately caused by identity confusion that he brings upon himself. Unlike the reader, he usually seems oblivious to lurking dangers. His only goal is to live an unexamined life. The reader experiences tension on Robert’s behalf as events begin to shape a future that looks bleak for the aimless teacher.

Additional characters are slowly introduced during the first half, each experiencing or contributing to the novel’s undercurrent of misfortune. Acts of violence and corruption tie the story threads together. Characters generally have a believable balance of good and bad. Like real people, some are mostly good, others are mostly bad, but none are purely one or the other.

The descriptions of Phnom Penh, with its varied Asian foods, motodops and tuk tuks, give the novel a rich atmosphere. Cambodian characters provide the reader with snippets of the country’s history which, like all histories, has its share of ugly moments. I love the perspectives of the Cambodian characters who have little use for crusading westerners (particularly Hollywood actresses who pose for the cameras while making impassioned speeches about child slavery before returning to their yachts). However well-intentioned they might be, they have little understanding of the culture and zero opportunity to influence it by a few days of posturing, a comfortable break from the extravagance of their western lives.

Hunters in the Dark is ultimately a story of karma. Although “what goes around, comes around” for many of the characters, the plot is not predictable. It is easy to believe despite its improbability, and Robert, although clueless, is easy to care about.

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The Shut Eye by Belinda Bauer

Published in Great Britian in 2015; published by Grove Press on January 12, 2016

DCI John Marvel might not live up to his name in all respects but he has an impressive ability to solve murders, thanks to hard work, determination, intuition, and attention to detail. On the other hand, even the colleagues who admire Marvel -- and there are only a handful -- agree that he is abrasive, rude, and generally unsuited to human interaction. That makes him a fun character, although a bad husband.

Marvel begins The Shut Eye by fretting about a cold case, a girl named Edie who went missing and is presumed dead. Soon he’s assigned to look for a missing dog, a project that does not make him happy.

In a closely related plotline, a boy named Danny has been missing for four months. The boy’s mother, Anna Buck, blames her husband for leaving the door unlocked and blames herself for not immediately noticing his absence. In Anna’s desperate desire to be reunited with Danny, she turns to a psychic, who made fruitless attempts to help the police recover Edie. The psychic purports to be a shut eye (a true psychic) as opposed to an open eye (a fraud) -- hence the novel’s title. Did I mention that the psychic specializes in communicating with lost dogs?

When Anna begins to have visions, Marvel isn’t sure what to believe. Anna’s mental health is shaky -- she is, in Marvel’s words, “mad as a bucket of frogs.” Can Marvel bring himself to rely on the paranormal instead of the real-world evidence that usually drives his investigations? Should the reader accept psychic phenomena at face value, or is there more to the story?

A couple of well-developed minor characters add depth to the story, including a Cambodian who fled his country to avoid shame and is living in England illegally. Also playing a significant role is a black female police officer who has been given a prominent position at the front desk so the police can show her off to the public, a decided waste of her intelligence and talent.

Belinda Bauer milks humor from the psychic and the missing dog, but also from Marvel, who suspects that his computer is being lazy when it can’t answer a question. Marvel has zero insight into why his wife is upset when he spreads autopsy photographs across the table during dinner. He’s the kind of guy who is likable in fiction even though you would dread knowing him in the real world.

Despite its undertones of humor, however, The Shut Eye is a serious crime novel. I don’t usually like stories that end as this one does -- I’m not sure it even makes sense -- but I’m giving The Shut Eye’s resolution a pass because it was, in a key respect, unexpectedly clever. I’m also recommending the novel because I enjoyed its suspense and liked the characters.

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