Reviewed by TONY BAER:
MARC BEHM – Eye of the Beholder. Dial Press, hardcover, 1980. Ballantine, softcover, 1981, 1999. Movie #1: Produced in France in 1983 as Mortelle Randonnée, and launched within the US as Lethal Circuit. Movie #2: Launched in 1999, with Ewan McGregor & Ashley Judd.
An previous, washed up personal eye. At an company. Divorced. Drinks, smokes. Had a daughter: Maggie. Hasn’t seen her in years. All he’s received left is a 1st grade class picture despatched from his ex-wife, on the again, saying I guess you don’t even know which one is her, asshole. And he didn’t. He’d take into consideration her although. Within the picture, there have been a couple of candidates that might’ve been her. And he’d decide one and create an entire life, commencement, marriage, children….
The boss assigns him a case. Wealthy aged couple. Their son, Philip, has taken up with some skank, and she or he’s most likely simply after his dough. Are you able to look into her, her background, get some dust, and watch them, there’s one thing about her we don’t a lot belief.
So the Eye follows them, subsequent day, they get married, she and Philip, elope, and honeymoon in a bit cottage upstate. The Eye’s watching. At all times watching. She’s lovely. Completely beautiful. And concerning the age of his daughter. Hell, possibly it’s his daughter. And he watches. Watches as Philip will get prepared for mattress, the marriage evening. I’ll take a fast bathe, he says. And he does. And he or she makes a few cognacs, and empties a vial of poison into Philip’s, and earlier than you realize it, he’s useless. She buries him within the yard.
And the Eye? He simply retains watching. Enthralled.
The Eye calls his boss, says the joyful couple break up for Montreal, however don’t fear, inform Philip’s mother and father the Eye is on their path.
So Philip’s mother and father bankroll the Eye’s voyeurism, as he travels from city to city, trailing this lovely lady who retains marrying wealthy younger males and murdering them.
And that, my mates, is that. He trails her and watches her and her sordid life, fantasizing that she’s his little one, searching for her, serving to her the place he can, with out her ever understanding, even till the tip. Which comes for all of us. Some earlier than others.
It was wonderful. However I don’t perceive the entire hullabaloo, because the e book received numerous hype for being one thing wonderful and distinctive in pi fiction.
Me? I don’t see it. PI’s obsessive about femme fatales? Nothing new below the solar. Considering the femme fatale’s your daughter? Gross and perverted.
So from me? A meh. It was wonderful. However it’s not so good as many PI novels, and I don’t see what’s imagined to be so particular about it. Behm says he’s not even into the PI style, doesn’t suppose a lot of it. And it reveals.
