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When I read Mark Cohen's THE FRACTAL MURDERS last year, I was struck by his ability to get me interested in the complex math of fractals (while still not quite getting me to grasp the concept, but that wasn't necessary). He also impressed me by presenting me with a protagonist who, on the surface, I shouldn't have liked, but did. Pepper Keane's a bit too macho at times, but he's far from stereotypical. And while I'm not sure that we'd like each other, I would trust him. In this story, his really cool lover Jayne is off teaching math for several months in China, which is too bad as I wanted to get to know her better. But we still spend some time with her. Meanwhile, Pepper, who reads philosophy for fun, is working to protect Karlynn Slade from the anger of a really bad motorcycle gang. She's left her boyfriend, Thaddeus Bugg, who runs the gang, having taken a ton of money and his dog. She bought the dog for Thaddeus but he treats it badly; her concern is one of the only shows of niceness in Karlynn, who's not easy to deal with. On occasions, I question Pepper's judgment and perhaps his methods, but some of his bluster is for show, and he uses it because he knows it works with the kind of people he's up against. The guy's pretty fearless, so I guess kidnapping the dog of a violent, drug-dealing meth-producing leader of a notorious, murderous biker gang isn't all that dumb when you've got guns, skilled friends and intelligence on your side. Without the dog, apparently Karlynn won't give the government what it wants -- and she wants out, she wants a new identity, she wants safety. Keane will try to see that she succeeds, even if she's not the easiest person to deal with. She's not very likable, but she hasn't had a lot of really good options in her life. He's not stupid enough to patronize Karlynn, but he does try to help her out. Keane's pretty macho in a lot of ways, which isn't my kind of thing, but he's inventive and determined and, yeah, just sensitive enough. He lives with depression, but in a matter-of-fact, "yeah, I take stuff for it" way that cuts down on what might otherwise be an angst-ridden story, and I like him for that. He copes, he knows what's going on with himself, and he neither obsesses about his problems, not ignores them. That's life. He's got good friends, family and neighbors. He's got a background that allows him to be a beer-drinking down-home kind of guy or a dress up and go out kind of guy, should he really want that. The strength I think of Cohen's characterization of Keane is that this guy isn't what you'd expect; the woman he's seeing is an expert in arcane mathematics, earning a lot of money and respect and Pepper likes that. Cool. The relationship's at a bit of a crossroads, though, which is difficult when you're on the other side of the world. If I were in trouble, I'd want someone like Pepper Keane looking out for me.
Reviewed by Andi Shechter, August 2005
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