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A review by fagurfifill
The Invisible by Seb Doubinsky
2.0
I could not quite make out what this book was for.
For me, a book should have an end as well as an ending, and this one stopped quite abruptly – so abruptly, in fact, that I thought at first I was experiencing formatting issues with my e-book version. However, I have since learnt that this is maybe supposed to a cliffhanger of sorts, so we might expect a 2nd volume. It seems there’s a collection of short stories with the same protagonist and setting that might have to be read before this to understand all the premises.
The setting is an alternate universe - of sorts. The place names have been changed to: New Babylon (which is, very transparently, New York), New Petersburg (nicknamed “Pete”, same as its namesake Питер), New Berlin, New Moscow, New This and New That - however, apart from this re-christening of real-life places, Doubinsky’s universe does not differ from ours in one single instance*. Virtually everything we have, they have: E-Mail, combustion engines, Guinness, YouTube, Antonioni or Iggy Pop, one and all being firmly in place, making you wonder why the author even bothered with his creation. To avoid being sued for libel? A simple disclaimer would have done the trick more conveniently.
*Edit: I’ve only just seen from other reviews that there is, in fact, one thing: there seems to exist a “legal assassination” concept, which may feature prominently in some of the other books, but gets only such a passing mention in this one that it did not register with me.
Anyway, here we are, witnessing the protagonist, an ageing cop, taking over his new job of city commissioner. A job he, basically, disapproves of as being political, however, there are some (rather benign, on the face of it) cases of corruption going on, which somebody has to uproot, and it’s either him or his arch enemy, so he buckles to. As we go along, we find that he, himself, is not above a spot of lobbying and getting “sponsored”, which even his radically socialist girl-friend does not object to. Ah well, live and let live.
An investigating detective is “stabbed from behind … right into the heart” (can that even be done?) and his notebook taken, however, it seems, not for his case notes, but for the poetry verses from his pen, and which the murderer, naturally, hangs on to. All of which points to some dark conspiracy on a large scale with the aim to suppress poetry, literature and, so, free thought. Also, there is a new illegal drug flooding the market. Said drug is reported to be neither addictive nor in any way harmful to its users, moreover being sold at cost price within a rather small community, making you wonder why it’s illegal in the first place. The Secret Service (?) stake out a drug lab. First appearance of “The invisible”. The end.
What this novel has to offer is: Loads and loads of characters, which I found a bit difficult to keep track of (the protagonist, before consistently called “Ratner”, at some point and quite out of the blue is referred to as “Georg”, leaving me like: “Who is that now?”). Smoking and boozing like in a seventies talk show. Cops happily littering their crime scenes with cigarette butts. An investigation virtually going nowhere. Choppy writing, reiterating parts of conversation verbatim within two consecutive paragraphs. Weird similes (“… her mouth appeared dark red. Ratner thought of cherries in the spring”). An Egyptian goddess acting as the hero’s “occasional detective sidekick”, offering not very helpful advice. I don’t know about “noir”, but there is certainly enough world-weariness and pointlessness floating around to put me off the rest of the series. Not for me, this wasn’t.
Finally, some facts for fiction:
- Undercovers do not usually make arrests.
- The bombing of Dresden (on a large scale) took place in 1945.
- A book burning is not normally called an “auto-da-fé”
- The DIN series for envelopes is C, not A
For me, a book should have an end as well as an ending, and this one stopped quite abruptly – so abruptly, in fact, that I thought at first I was experiencing formatting issues with my e-book version. However, I have since learnt that this is maybe supposed to a cliffhanger of sorts, so we might expect a 2nd volume. It seems there’s a collection of short stories with the same protagonist and setting that might have to be read before this to understand all the premises.
The setting is an alternate universe - of sorts. The place names have been changed to: New Babylon (which is, very transparently, New York), New Petersburg (nicknamed “Pete”, same as its namesake Питер), New Berlin, New Moscow, New This and New That - however, apart from this re-christening of real-life places, Doubinsky’s universe does not differ from ours in one single instance*. Virtually everything we have, they have: E-Mail, combustion engines, Guinness, YouTube, Antonioni or Iggy Pop, one and all being firmly in place, making you wonder why the author even bothered with his creation. To avoid being sued for libel? A simple disclaimer would have done the trick more conveniently.
*Edit: I’ve only just seen from other reviews that there is, in fact, one thing: there seems to exist a “legal assassination” concept, which may feature prominently in some of the other books, but gets only such a passing mention in this one that it did not register with me.
Anyway, here we are, witnessing the protagonist, an ageing cop, taking over his new job of city commissioner. A job he, basically, disapproves of as being political, however, there are some (rather benign, on the face of it) cases of corruption going on, which somebody has to uproot, and it’s either him or his arch enemy, so he buckles to. As we go along, we find that he, himself, is not above a spot of lobbying and getting “sponsored”, which even his radically socialist girl-friend does not object to. Ah well, live and let live.
An investigating detective is “stabbed from behind … right into the heart” (can that even be done?) and his notebook taken, however, it seems, not for his case notes, but for the poetry verses from his pen, and which the murderer, naturally, hangs on to. All of which points to some dark conspiracy on a large scale with the aim to suppress poetry, literature and, so, free thought. Also, there is a new illegal drug flooding the market. Said drug is reported to be neither addictive nor in any way harmful to its users, moreover being sold at cost price within a rather small community, making you wonder why it’s illegal in the first place. The Secret Service (?) stake out a drug lab. First appearance of “The invisible”. The end.
What this novel has to offer is: Loads and loads of characters, which I found a bit difficult to keep track of (the protagonist, before consistently called “Ratner”, at some point and quite out of the blue is referred to as “Georg”, leaving me like: “Who is that now?”). Smoking and boozing like in a seventies talk show. Cops happily littering their crime scenes with cigarette butts. An investigation virtually going nowhere. Choppy writing, reiterating parts of conversation verbatim within two consecutive paragraphs. Weird similes (“… her mouth appeared dark red. Ratner thought of cherries in the spring”). An Egyptian goddess acting as the hero’s “occasional detective sidekick”, offering not very helpful advice. I don’t know about “noir”, but there is certainly enough world-weariness and pointlessness floating around to put me off the rest of the series. Not for me, this wasn’t.
Finally, some facts for fiction:
- Undercovers do not usually make arrests.
- The bombing of Dresden (on a large scale) took place in 1945.
- A book burning is not normally called an “auto-da-fé”
- The DIN series for envelopes is C, not A