Review: Death, memories and a classic movie
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 02 23, 2014
Sometimes, a book hits you wrong at the very beginning and you put it aside, probably never to pick it up again, thereby never learning if the book was really worth reading. I almost made that mistake with Broken Sigil. It introduces us to hard-edged cop Joe Connors -- you know the type, eats rusty nails for breakfast and washes them down with scalding hot mud water. He's seen it all and then some, and makes sure everyone knows it. It's a character type that I've seen too many times in books and films, so at the first page, my first thought was to move on to another waiting book. But I decided to keep reading and was not disappointed.Because Joe hasn't quite seen it all. He gets called to a shooting and finds his old friend, another cop, shot dead by his own partner. After hearing the shooter's account of the dead man's strange behavior when he came out of a particular building, Joe goes on an investigation of the occupants of the building, trying to discover some clues that would make sense of it all. He finds a lot of bizarre behavior and phenomena; his first interviewee nervously scratches at her belly until it bleeds while anxiously keeping an eye on a large mirror in her apartment. But Joe thinks that he sees something in the mirror, too. As he continues his investigation, he learns more about the secrets of the building, as it opens up memories and possibilities related to his dead friend, his dead wife and -- The Maltese Falcon?Author William Meikle does a fine job of weaving together an interesting and rather unique story. I still never came to like Joe's character very much, but it attests to the power of a story when the protagonist is not especially likeable and yet you still care about what happens to him.