Review
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Title: A Circle of Souls
Author: Preetham Grandhi
Publisher: Sweetwater Books (an imprint of CFI)
Genre: Fiction
Year Published: 2009
Number of Pages: 339
Binding: Paperback
ISBN10: n/a
ISBN13: 978-1-59955-235-4
Price: $15.99
Reviewed by Jeffrey Needle
Having read every word of this novel, over a period of about a week, I picked up the phone and called my friend at Cedar Fort. I didn't know anything about Sweetwater Books; I'd never heard of the author; there wasn't an ounce of Mormonism in this book. Why did CFI decide to publish it? Turns out Sweetwater Books is an imprint of Cedar Fort, designed to publish works for the larger reading public. No, not the larger *Christian* reading public per se, but the larger reading public, period.
As such, there is not only no Mormonism in this book. Neither is there any standard expression of religion at all. And there are lots of "damn"s and not a single "darn" I could find. And the protagonists agree to meet for a cold beer. You get the idea.
Before I give you my opinion of the book, let me describe its contents. If your children are reading over your shoulder, kindly ask them to go play in the yard for a while.
Young Janet Troy is a happy little girl, living in a suburban Connecticut town. When she doesn't return home from school one day, her mother becomes concerned and begins a search for her daughter. The concern is well founded -- Janet has been murdered in a vicious and highly ritualized manner. After death, her body is dismembered and the parts disbursed in a nearby field. Local police are stymied -- this is more than they're equipped to deal with. They summon the help of FBI agent Leia Bines, a known authority at solving crimes involving children.
When Bines arrives on the scene, she recognizes she needs to understand the terrain better and requests a helicopter and pilot to take her up for aerial photographs. It is only then that she realizes that the various body parts have been laid out in a larger pattern resembling a human body. This elevates the case in her mind -- not just a crazed killer here, but one who is involved in some sick ritual.
A search of local history files yields the fact that a similar murder occurred decades earlier in this same area. It was never solved.
There's another story going on at the same time. Dr. Peter Gram is a child psychiatrist -- overworked, overstressed, etc. When a young child named Naya Hastings is admitted to the hospital, Peter takes a special interest in the little girl. She's been having nightmares, and the previous night she tried to leap from her bedroom window. Fearing for her safety, her foster parents admit her to the hospital.
The story lines come together when Naya begins communicating with Janet in her sleep. Naya, talented in drawing, is able to sketch details of the murder that only the killer, and the victim, would know. Peter is determined to team with Leia to solve the many mysteries confronting them. Who killed Janet? Is he the same person who killed that other girl years ago? How is Naya communicating and knowing so much about the murder?
Other characters enter into the story, including a fellow doctor who is caught up in things beyond his ability to control, somewhat incompetent local law enforcement officers, it goes on and on.
As the book progresses, the reader is brought into a dark place where none of us really wants to be. Scenes inside the children's psychiatric hospital reveal some deep-seated truths about our health care system that can shock the senses. So much evil seeming to triumph over the good. Can it ever be redeemed, can it ever be brought back to a place where we can comfortably live?
Grandhi explores some interesting theological ideas. It isn't clear whether he's aware of the dangerous ground on which he treads. One chapter explores the mind of the killer, reflecting on a childhood fraught with problems and superstitious nonsense. He dismembers animals to please the deity. And in the process, he wonders if the whole notion of killing and presenting the victim to God isn't an effort to fool God into thinking that the sinner himself has been killed, and this expiating his sins. It sends shivers up the spine of any believer in the substitutionary atonement of Jesus Christ.
"A Circle of Souls" is about as grisly a book as I've ever read from any LDS publisher. It is brutal and unforgiving in its depictions of murder, greed and the depravity of the human soul. It stops short of being quite as bad as, say, Stephen King, but it comes perilously close to going over the edge.
This is Grandhi's first novel, and it's a real gem. It's absolutely pitch-perfect in every way: scary when it should be scary, comforting when it should be comforting. My innards cringed when they should have cringed; I was able to breathe when I was supposed to breathe.
The identity of the killer came as a complete surprise, although after its revelation, I was able to trace back where the author subtly telegraphed the killer's identity. But I also recognized that he folded in clues all along the way designed to lead the reader away from the truth. I swallowed them, hook, line and sinker.
There are no easy resolutions in this book. Grandhi lacks the kind of sensibility that wants everything to work out in the end, and this is to his credit. Rather than patent resolutions to problems, he instead enters into the heart of darkness that is the human soul, ripping apart any holy clothing that any of us may think we wear. The whole thing just brims over with evil and suffering, mysticism and superstition, and, in the end, a powerful argument for rationality and the triumph of the human spirit.
"A Circle of Souls" is just about the best novel I've read in years, hands down. Returning to my opening words in this book, although I loved the read, and have come away with an enormous admiration for the author, I still have no idea why Cedar Fort has picked up this imprint. Whatever the reason, I'm glad they did. I might not ever have met this book, and I would have been the poorer for it.
Jeffrey Needle
Association for Mormon Letters
jeff.needle@gmail.comwww.aml-online.orgwww.LDSBookLovers.com/Needle.html
