re:mote voices: literature

Title: The Straw Men
Author: Michael Marshall
Publisher: Harper Collins

The Straw Men is the first book by Michael Marshall, a new and alternative name for Michael Marshall Smith who has published 3 novels and one collection of short stories to date. So why the change of name? Good question - and a valid one I feel, given that I think he could have gotten away with publishing this as MMS rather than MM. Though on the other hand there is an undoubted genre shift and to that end there are always people who are willing to be confused by these kind of things, so a name change provides a warning of change and a fresh slate in a new genre. Only Forward, Spares and One Of Us are all Science Fiction novels to some degree, though they are near future and the don't necessarily read as hard science fiction novels. With The Straw Men I wasn't sure what to expect genre wise, I was getting hints of crime and horror from the presentation (I've also seen it on display in the "crime" section) - but for me genre wasn't really important. Familiar with the work of Michael Marshall Smith I trusted that Michael Marshall would provide work of a similar calibre.

The Straw Men works as two narratives, which inevitably come together at points, as you would expect as soon as you work this fact out. Interestingly one narrative is told in first person and the other is in third person; most novels being one or the other. Wade Hopkins is the first person, in town for the funeral of his parents who have been killed in a car accident. Wade hasn't been particularly close to his parents, and they certainly didn't know about his past as a member of the CIA, an ex-member for various reasons. This fact becomes relevant as he finds an elaborate series of clues left for him by his parents, allowing him resources which wouldn't be open to the average person. The first being a note that claims that they are not dead - despite all evidence to the contrary. This leads to the conspiracy, which seems to revolve around an organisation calling itself The Straw Men.

Meanwhile the third person narrative follows a couple of characters, though all of this link together in a more obvious fashion. John Zandt is an ex-policeman, his work in homicide division led to experience of serial killers, which led him to involvement with the FBI on a couple of cases. The result was that his own daughter was kidnapped by a killer as a warning, the fourth and last girl to go missing, and the only one whose body was never found. Several years have passed and The Upright Man has returned, John becomes involved once more, hoping to be able to find the killer of his daughter and to save the life of his current victim.

As Michael Marshall Smith there tends to be a pattern to his novels, in that the lead character is always a male, someone who has maybe hit on hard times of a varyingly dubious nature but is still hard as fuck if he really has to be. With The Straw Men we have a shift, primarily with the whole first/third person thing, but also because essentially we have two leads of this nature rather than one, while also following the FBI agent, the kidnapped girl and the kidnapper at various points. The macho potential of the leads is toned down from previous works, the characters both having worked for government agencies and now both cut loose from those lives but for different reasons.

The only thing I could possibly describe as an obvious weakness with The Straw Men is that certain facts are given too early. So that certain conclusions are made from those facts. The result is that when we approach the climax of events there are things, which surprise the characters, but the reader will likely already have worked out. Given the balance of the narrative overall it is possible that Michael felt that it was more important to reveal these facts to provide flow and motivation for one of the narratives. In real terms it doesn't detract from the book, but its a lost potential for shock.

This is another enjoyable novel from Michael regardless of which name he has gone for. A different content, but with enough stylistic and thematic similarities to please a familiar reader like myself.

RVWR: PTR
May 2002