James Sallis Eye Of The Cricket

(5 stars; 3 reviews)

James Sallis' intriguing novel. Set in late nineties New Orleans. "The storm came in over the lake, bowing the shaggy heads of young trees and snapping branches off the old, blowing out of Metairie where the white folks live. In my own back yard a hundred-year-old water oak at last gave in, splitting in half as though a broadsword had struck it, opening like a book..." Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. And he is a man subject to all of the frailties to which we are heir. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son...and himself in the process. Now a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men. 01 Ray Shell begins a reading of James Sallis' crime novel, featuring detective Lew Griffin on the trail of his missing son. 02 The New Orleans detective launches a search deep into his past. 03 The detective discovers some of his New Orleans neighbours waiting to meet him. 04 With his son missing and a bogus Lew Griffin at large, the detective takes action. 05 The New Orleans detective is on the trail of a missing teenager - and an imposter. 06 As the New Orleans detective's investigations continue, he reflects on meeting Deborah. 07 Hunting a teenager, the New Orleans detective thinks of his own son - and Don's troubled. 08 The detective's cop friend Don faces the appalling news of his son's suicide. 09 With his life unraveling, the detective leaves home with a cryptic message for Don. 10 Adrift in New Orleans in search of his son, the detective meets a stranger. Read by Ray Shell and Joe Karie. Adapted and produced in ten parts by Gordon House. First broadcast: From Mon 26th Nov 2007, 09:30 on BBC Radio 7 A derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men. Lew Griffin's investigation is the hero's journey, mythic and strengthening and thoroughly satisfying. Lew Griffin is a survivor, a black man in New Orleans, a detective, a teacher, a writer. Having spent years finding others, he has lost his son...and himself in the process. Now a derelict has appeared in a New Orleans hospital claiming to be Lewis Griffin and displaying a copy of one of Lew's novels. It is the beginning of a quest that will take Griffin into his own past while he tries to deal in the present with a search for three missing young men. The fourth book in the Lew Griffin series (following Black Hornet, 1994) proves once again that Sallis is one of the least conventional and most interesting writers working in the mystery genre. Readers who prefer plots that move straight ahead and fast may resist the spell of his talent, but those willing to untangle a twisted time line and go with the peculiar flow of Sallis's unique prose will find many rewards. Poetic, complex, and multidimensional, Sallis's insect-titled crime novels about New Orleans detective Lew Griffin are unlike any other you're likely to crack open. The main treat is also the main mystery: What is it that makes Griffin, a middle-aged African American intellectual, tick? Told by him in the first person, Cricket, number four in the series, is ostensibly about his search for several missing young people, one of whom is his son. But there is no linear progression to the investigation. Instead, as filtered through Griffin's quick, contrary, memory-obsessed mind, the story shifts, switches, leaps back and forth in time. Peppered with images of intriguing events from Griffin's past, as well as references that range from Andre Gide to Woody Woodpecker, the story takes us to a conclusion that is both rewarding and, strange for Griffin, uplifting.

This recording is part of the Old Time Radio collection.