Customer Reviews

Endless Honeymoon

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Endless Honeymoon is the third in a recent series of Texas-based mysteries by the engagingly odd writer Don Webb. I say series, but the books are very loosely linked, sharing mostly some Texas settings, and occasionally featuring major characters from another book as minor characters. This latest book, after The Double and Essential Saltes, is even more loosely linked, as the protagonists of the other two books were brothers. All three books are highly recommended. They lead male characters are all likeable, somewhat nerdy, and very uxorious. The subject matter is always a bit off-center, and quite different from book to book, but computers are always central to the books. And you can count on a mention of fireworks.

This book is about a couple named Willis and Virginia Spencer. They are independently wealthy (Virginia inherited money, and Willis made a bundle as a Y2K expert), and they spend much of their time performing rather cruel pranks. Their victims are people whom they have discovered who are "psychic vampires", who delight in causing misery to those around them, and Willis and Virginia hope to teach these folks a lesson. They choose their victims by means of a computer program Willis found during his Y2K work. It turns out, however, that the program was written by a man who takes the whole thing a bit more seriously: he murders the "psychic vampires" instead of simply scaring them. And one day, unluckily, Willis and Virginia choose the same victim that this other man has chosen.

Before long, several people are on the track of the couple. One is the agent the FBI has assigned to the case, a young Hispanic man named William Mondragon. This case has the reputation of driving FBI agents crazy, and indeed the previous agent on the case, Abel Salazar, has quit the FBI and is working for someone else, also looking for the killer, and he tracks down both Mondragon and the Spencers. Add the real killer himself, who may be looking for a successor to carry on his work, and the mysterious person behind Salazar, and the Spencers are in big trouble. Before long Virginia has been kidnapped and Willis and Mondragon are on a wild chase after both her and the real killer. The resolution is quite scary, involving several people who are both insane and evil, and dealing with Virginia's past abuse by both her father and her first husband, with the real killer's wasted life, and with a strange psychiatrist.

The story is full of imaginative action, and it's fast moving and exciting. Webb does not shy away from the moral implications of all his character's actions, and from the unfortunate attractiveness of the "psychic vampire" killer's agenda. Willis and Virginia are flawed and likeable, and even the villains, mostly, are real (if very strange) people, and not wholly villainous. (The only exception is clearly completely insane.) Another outstanding mystery novel by one of our most interesting and imaginative writers.

In Endless Honeymoon, Webb chronicles the exploits of a serial killer with a unique obsession: the aptly named "S**tkiller," on a personal mission to rid the world of those who delight in the misery of others, targets only the mean and cruel spirited. Although he's made dozens of kills across America over the course of several decades, the FBI has few clues as to his identity or motive.

The job of tracking down this legendary killer has ended several careers, most recently that of Abel Salazar. Although severed from the Bureau, Salazar, funded by a mysterious benefactor, continues the pursuit, obsessively following up every lead regarding his nemesis, including several uncovered by his successor in the investigation, the hapless Special Agent William Mondragon.

Recent events have led Mondragon to focus on Willis and Virginia Spencer, a couple who, stumbling upon an early version of the killer's victim selection software, have put it to an entirely different use--instead of killing the targets, they play elaborate pranks on them, hoping to scare them into changing their ways. Unfortunately for the well meaning couple, their activities bring them into direct contact with their spiritual "mentor" when they one night find they have selected the same target. That fateful encounter is a catalyst for the rest of the novel, setting in motion a bizarre scenario where all parties are eventually thrown together. The results are by turns outrageous, tragic, and comic.

Essentially a "road" novel, the book hangs together nicely. Webb always keeps things hopping, even while exploring relatively familiar terrain. The narrative draws most of its strength from the revealing interactions of a strong ensemble cast--Webb explores the duality of love and hate, fate and chance, loyalty and betrayal, crime and justice, retribution and forgiveness, all the while making his audience laugh its collective head off. His skewed perspective, one he shares with fellow Texans Joe R. Lansdale, Howard Waldrop, Neil Barrett, Bruce Sterling, William Browning Spencer and Lewis Shiner, and with spiritual brother David Prill (a Minnesotan!), is a breath of fresh air, raising Endless Honeymoon high above the usual fare.

This book starts out with an interesting premise, but it soon becomes simply tedious.