Review: An FBI Agent Like One We've Never Met Before
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 12 24, 2013
He Drinks Poison is a terrible title for an incredibly well written novel.  The title alludes to a tale from Hindu mythology, but it is impossible to know that without reading the book first, and without that knowledge it seems generic, belying the complexity of the novel.  That said, this is a crime thriller with a literary twist. Centering on a female FBI agent who tracks serial killer, Priya Conlin-Kumar is a brand new kind of agent, one we’ve never seen before. The daughter of an inter-racial and cultural marriage,  she has grown up both American and immersed in the Hindu culture of her father’s homeland. She is however unsure of her actually paternal biology as she was the product of rape, which has driven her to her profession, but which has also made her both strong and uncertain in the world. The depth of characterization is one of the great strengths of the novel; Cunningham is interested in how people are formed and what creates their behaviors, so she generates both detailed heroes and villains. She is also interested in how the examination of certain subjects then affects (and perhaps infects) the examiners (hence the title). That is worth thinking about.Conlin-Kumar arrives in a small town where a serial killer appears to be operating, only to realize soon into her investigation that there are actually two at work, even if the local police force don’t want to believe her. The killers’ eyes soon turn to her, but nothing is as easy as this turning into a cat and mouse game. Instead Conlin-Kumar has visions from one of the great Hindu mythological epics, which begin to resonate with the killings and her own state of being and everything begins to meld together. Drawing both strength and primal fire from the Hindu deities, Conlin-Kumar begins to transform, but so do serial killers, upping the ante in every way.It’s exciting stuff, but it’s also sadistic and gruesome. A lot of people love this kind of sex-crime based genre, and if you do, you’ll really enjoy this book, but if the exploitation of women gets to you, you will find this book fairly unpleasant. I’m always unsure where the line is with this genre; is it actually just perpetrating more violence?  In the end does this book end up doing what the title is alluding to?