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March 24, 2000 | Death From the Woods By Brigitte Aubert; translated from the
French by David L. Koral
Moment of Truth By Lisa Scottoline HarperCollins, 355 pages
Deep South By Nevada Barr Putnam, 340 pages
Brigitte Aubert's Death From the Woods, which was recently translated from the French, is a good example of a book to read for the journey. Winner of the 1997 Grand Prix de Litterature Policiere, it has the perfect heroine. Elise Andrioli is beautiful, funny and brave. And blind, mute and quadriplegic. The book reads like romantic suspense from 30 years ago, with the finely tuned hysteria of an Ursula Curtiss mystery. Odd threats are suggested. Everyday events hint at unspecified horrors. Paranoia has seeped into the prose until it is inseparable from it. Of course, in this day and age a writer couldn't get away with such skittishness in a full-facultied woman. In real life most people are still spooked when a back door slams suddenly, but on the page women can coolly fight off assaults that would have left the old 50-Foot Woman bleating for mercy. Make the heroine a blind, mute quadriplegic, though, and every little twanging of the nerve will make perfect sense. She can be brave just sitting in the passenger seat. Elise has been incapacitated by the terrorist bomb that killed her fiancé, and, her movie theater sold, she has retreated to a Parisian suburb, where she is cared for by her longtime housekeeper, Yvette. One day Yvette leaves her sitting in her wheelchair outside a supermarket to catch the sun. There a disturbed little girl who calls herself Virginie tells Elise she saw "Death from the Woods" kill a boy who has been missing for a few days. That afternoon Elise hears her physical therapist tell Yvette that the boy has been found, strangled. It is hard to imagine a situation that could intrinsically arouse more curiosity. Since the story is confined to Elise's point of view, what is going on is always open to at least some doubt. Elise's encounter with Virginie sends her into a whole new circle of people she must learn about in her strange, new, limited way. One man declares his love for her. Huh? We may be in love with her, but then we know her. It is perfectly in keeping with the tone that another recently acquired friend eventually turns out to be an impostor. Like Virginie, adults confide a lot in Elise (shades of "The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter"), but the only way she can respond is to raise an index finger. Ah! That finger! It is truly eloquent. And funny. How can it be funny? Yet it is. The uncertainty of not knowing whether everyday details of life are threats is far more frightening than a sudden, bloody-knifed attack. Aubert is free to take full advantage of this circumstance, and she does. She shamelessly chases suspense. I am always suspicious when reviewers talk of "nail-biting" and the like. (Someone should do a study of whether such descriptions have tapered off with the widespread use of Prozac-type drugs.) Still, when Elise regains consciousness toward the end of the book in an unknown place with no clue as to who or what is beside her, it is one scary moment.
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