Review: `The fallacies of the malleability in the treatment for repressed memory'
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 2, 2013
It is a rather shaking experience to see a new book by an author who made such and impression, especially of those of us who severed in the Vietnam war in any capacity, when he published his vitriolic and terrifically powerful and well observed novel about that heinous mistake of a war - YEAR OF THE MONKEY. But here he is almost 25 years later with another incisive exploration of the way the human mind under duress continues to function - or malfunction. Born in Alabama, Ron Argo began his career in journalism in 1968 by falling into the draft to be sent to Vietnam where he gathered the stories that continue to haunt us today. After returning stateside he continued his studies in San Diego State University and the University of Arizona and eventually his response to his memoires of the Vietnam atrocity resulted in this 1989 publication of that important war novel. He is a prize-winning journalist and photographer and continues to write about the troubling inconsistencies of life as we are living it, whether that be the civil rights battle of the 60s or infant smuggling. In this current novel he explores false memory and the mind and action of serial killing.Ray "Magic" Myers, San Diego's top crime reporter, determines to demonstrate the innocence of a young woman accused in the recent murder of her abusive father. But not only must Ray protect the tormented suspect--who has barely recovered her early memories of abuse, and who claims to have no memory of killing her father--but he must also save himself and his own family as a psychopathic killer stalks revenge. The issues that crowd the pages of this rather terrifying novel include examination of that labyrinth of recovered memories, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, betrayal, and violence. `A psychological mystery, THE COURAGE TO KILL is a superb portrayal of the fallacies of the malleability in the treatment for repressed memory, a controversial subject whose impact has most fixated the mental health profession since Freud.'One of the reasons Ron Argo's writing stings is his journalistic delineation of every aspect of his writing: these are not only characters that he has constructed, these are also maladies of a world inept at coping with mental states we cannot understand and thus avoid.  For those who love thriller novels, this is a must read. For those who care to venture into unknown psychological dysfunction, pay very close attention here. Grady Harp, October 13