The final chapters of Matt Goldman’s The Shallows are amazing. I won’t reveal them, but they add a gracious note to the chaos of current affairs.
Mystery stories restore order: a crime is committed, the order of life is perturbed, the detective sets out to uncover the disorder and see that justice is done. In the process, the reader learns something about the causes of the perturbation, the meaning of justice, and, often, an encouraging sense that with the aid of the detective, the world will be, to some degree, restored. The best mysteries are those which both address the disorders of the time when the story was written and also touch something universal and timeless. For me, The Shallows is one of those.
As a mystery story, The Shallows reads well. Lots of punishing action, the characters are unique, yet relatable, the plot is well-constructed (surprising, but reasonable) and the setting is compelling. However, I found the beginning slow to get into; the prose was plain, choppy, generally lacking profluency, and I considered setting the book aside. But about 20 pages in, the story caught and carried me through to the end. Either the style changed, or I got used to the style. I don’t know which, but I am glad I kept on reading.
The setting is Minnesota summer: hot, humid, and proudly flyover chic. Nils Silver is a private investigator and former police detective. A lawyer is found drowned in a suburban lake. Everyone— the drowned man’s wife, his employer, and the suburban police force— wants to hire Silver to investigate. His relationship with the police is complex, not the usual blind antagonism. Silver’s cool industrial loft apartment is inadequately airconditioned and blazing hot. At every opportunity, Goldman upends the hackneyed order of events and emotions, giving the book a pleasantly askew texture.
The book is the third in the Nils Silver series. I confess that I have not read the preceding two books, but after The Shallows, they are on my reading list.