THE MAENAD'S GOD

An FBI agent becomes embroiled with a magnetic rock musician in this crime novel.

Boston, 1992. Special Agent Peter Morrow is not winning any awards at the FBI. He only applied for the job as a joke in the first place, and he has trouble hiding his disdain for his bosses, co-workers, and some of the victims he works with. After being removed from the missing persons unit for punching a social worker in the jaw, Pete is given a new assignment. It seems an Army private stationed in Rome, New York, may be dealing heroin for the Utica mob. But when Pete gets to the Army base, he learns from the commander that the supposed dealer, Claude Hopner, is AWOL. Pete hangs around anyway to question the members of Black Dog, the Canadian rock band that happens to be playing a gig at the base that night—he suspects they are in fact a cog in the drug ring since they seem to know Hopner. Pete’s rewarded with a major development in the case: After the show, the base commander (another potential cog) is found brutally murdered, with a note affixed to the body referencing “Hopner’s sardines.” The story gets even weirder when it turns out the dead “commander” was lying about his identity. Pete’s interest in Black Dog only increases after that, particularly in the band’s otherworldly bassist and composer, Jade McCrae, whose extended family has connections to Hopner and the dead man—and to some really interesting ideas about gods and reincarnation. When Hopner turns up drawn and quartered in the Arizona desert, the case becomes so high profile that Pete struggles to keep control of it. Is it a mob hit? An instance of ritual sacrifice? There are many parties with a preferred outcome—the Mafia, the politicians, the FBI, a coven of cultists—but Pete has decided that this case will play out the way he wants it to, even if he has to work a bit of magic of his own.

Michalson’s prose, as narrated by the loquacious Pete, is by turns wisecracking and obsessive. Here, he experiments with a bit of the mysticism he encounters in an extended Black Dog scene in order to focus his thoughts: “I lit a candle and set it on my hearth. Put the charms into a large wooden bowl….Placed the bowl near the candle and imagined the sea. Felt the moment of autumn evening and knew Aphrodite was in it. Then I took out a yellow legal pad and began to sketch out a viable plan of action.” The plot moves slowly, and the book is easily a hundred pages too long. Plus, it will take readers a while to get over Pete’s sometimes-insufferable snark. Even so, Pete’s quest takes him in unexpected occult directions, opening up an intricate world of ecstasy and paranoia. The author doesn’t quite achieve the level of emotional depth she seems to be striving for, but the novel’s angst and atmosphere—both authentically ’90s—make for a strangely alluring reading experience.

An engaging, snaking, and spirit-tinged murder tale about obsession and control.