Customer Reviews

Ritual

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Still grieving the loss of her parents in an accidental drowning two years ago in Boesmansgat (Bushman's Hole) in Africa, police diver Sergeant Phoebe "Flea" Marley recovers from Bristol Harbor, a detached hand; no other body part is found. The hand's fingerprints identify the limb belonged to heroin addict Ian "Mossy" Mallows.

The obvious drug connection is explored by Detective Inspector Jack Caffery; Flea investigates a seemingly loose thread tied to the African witchcraft of muti that she knows from her parents deaths in the Kalahari Desert. It uses body parts as part of the rituals. The two cops soon change their minds about finding a corpse as evidnce begins to point towards the victim being alive. They also conclude that the muti ritual is a sleight of the hand (no pun intended) ploy to cover up even more nefarious plans.

This gritty urban English police procedural hooks the audience from the opening dive until the final confrontation as the two cops uncover a case tied to illegal drug usage and the torture side of muti before realizing there is much more to the investigation. The story line is fast-paced as the readers wonders along side of Caffery and Marley what is going on especially when they feel strongly the victim is breathing. Fans will appreciate this strong investigative thriller (see THE TREATMENT and BIRDMAN; neither read by me) as Mo Hayder provides an enjoyable whodunit that focuses on learning what was done.

Harriet Klausner

Two characters are critical to the accelerating tempo of this compelling thriller: Sergeant "Flea" Marley of Bristol's Underwater Search Unit and DI Jack Caffrey, newly seconded to the Major Crime Investigation Unit, a man who has seen his share of agony and human depravity in his work, recently transferred from London to Bristol. This is an unlikely pair, the jaded, world-weary Caffrey and a twenty-six year old diver still angst-riddled from her parents' accidental diving death in a treacherous pool in the Kalahari Desert. Long enamored of diving, as were her parents, Flea is more at home in the water, even the murky Avon, its penetrating silence one of the few places she feels close to her mother and father. Used to recovering floaters and suicides, Flea is a bit discomfited to discover a hand- no body- just a hand and that neatly severed at the wrist. Surgically removed. When the other half of this pair is unearthed soon after, the search centers around the missing body that matches the hands.

Essentially, Flea's part of the investigation is finished, but she remains fascinated by the implications of this strange discovery, her curiosity exacerbated when she learns of a possible link to the arcane practice of muti, an African method of healing through medical witchcraft using harvested body parts. Such a practice, though outrageous, is not beyond the pale in Bristol's crime and drug-infested underworld, a growing immigrant community and the drug-addicted disenfranchised that wander decaying slums blighted by opportunistic crime. When Caffrey connects the crimes to Mossy, a missing heroin addict, the detective's personal demons are awakened, delivering Jack to the shadowed places in his mind he has so far failed to escape, geographic or no. Coming together in like purpose, Flea and Jack stand on the cusp of a scenario neither of them could have imagined: "You're looking for death".

Not since Dan Simmons' Carrion Comfort have I enjoyed such a compelling catalog of depraved human behavior, the evil perpetrated on the addled brains and desperate needs of society's unfortunates. Not content with the nightmarish jungle they enter in search of the missing addict, Hayden incorporates the painful internal dramas both Flea and Caffrey navigate daily, she since her parents' untimely death, he since a family tragedy in his youth. Literally two lost souls, the protagonists are drawn together in a tale that colludes with their own emotional journeys, yet promises respite from their burdens at the end of a traveling circus of horrors. Deeply creepy, Hayden inhabits this genre, the underground warrens of dissolute human behavior the perfect canvas for extraordinary depravity and exploitation. Never having read Mo Hayen until now, this novel exceeded my expectations, a tale littered with the detritus of an indifferent society bled dry by greed. There is ugliness and violence, but it is never gratuitous. Be prepared: the only way out is through nature's grotesquerie. Such a walk on the wild side should always be accompanied by involuntary shudders, if only to remind us that our capacity for outrage remains intact. Luan Gaines/ 2008.

It's with mixed feelings that I approach this review: The novel is meticulously written, fascinating and suspenseful. Yet, it was a slogging read, slow and tiring to go through. And I wonder why. I have no answer. Maybe it's just a personal reaction.

The novel is straightforward enough. It has the elements of a police procedural, introspective insights into the lives of the protagonists, characters that are different and well-drawn. And yet it seems to drag on slowly. At the heart of the mystery is the discovery by the police diving team of a severed hand in Bristol harbor in England. A matching hand is found buried nearby in the dirt by the entrance of a restaurant. Thus, the stage is set for the search for the victim dead or alive and the reason for detaching the hands.

We learn about African rituals and diving, perhaps more than one would like. The depth of the novel is certainly there, and yet my reaction is, unfortunately, restrained. I would recommend reading the book if you don't mind a slow read.

I loved this. It's the first Mo Hayder I've read and will be back for more. It's a deep thriller filled with suspense. There is internal conflict in the two main protagonists, Flea and Caffery, both having suffered some deep trauma in their lives. The main plotline was believable and thought provoking. A fasntastic read.

The first page of RITUAL describes a crater that surrounds a pool of water. This sinkhole is so cold that only a few canefish manage to survive there. Anyone who comes upon it by chance or design will find it to be unusually still, and if they choose to take a dip, they'll discover too late that there is no way to climb out of this bottomless pit. This anomalous body of water, located in South Africa's Kalahari Desert, has quite a reputation among a certain segment of the world's population; divers see it as one of the ultimate cave formations to conquer. "This is Bushman's Hole. This is Boesmansgat [and] to the Kalahari people, This is the path to hell."

Chapter One begins in Bristol's floating harbor, where 29-year-old Sergeant Phoebe "Flea" Marley is nine feet under silt-filled black water, handling a disarticulated human hand that she cannot actually see. Her partner, PC Rich Dundas, keeps track of her from above, and she hears him speak to her through her earpiece. He knows about the hand and is anxious for her to surface. But she decides to stay where she is a while longer because she thinks she senses a "presence" but could neither hear nor see anything.

When she surfaces and is getting dressed, she begins to examine her toes and is frightened by the webbing that is growing between them. So far this is her secret. When Dundas calls her name, she quickly puts on socks and turns to find DI Jack Caffery, Deputy SIO. He's just been transferred to this part of the country, and while very experienced, he has a lot to learn about this place. Unfortunately, he was under the misconception that the hand was the result of a suicide, but it's not. It's been sawed off, which means...murder.

Then the second hand is found under the restaurant on the dock, owned by Mr. Mdebele, an African émigré who is very familiar with the sacrifices imposed by the occult practices of muti (witchcraft medicine). As it happens, hands are an integral part of ritualistic mutilation of live victims. Was someone trying to bring luck to Mdebele's restaurant business, or were they setting him up as the perpetrator of the barbarism?

The hands remind the cops that a few years ago the torso of a very young male was found in London waters. The authorities named him "Adam" but never did find out who he was, nor did they ever discover who butchered him. They had no way of knowing at the time if he was the victim of a demented sadist or if someone who was practicing African muti had captured him. However, over time the strange disappearances of young boys coupled with twisted rumors about strange doings flooded Bristol. Those in the know kept a keen eye on events that could be the result of the practice of African black magic, or worse.

When Mdebele is vetted, the investigators learn that he is involved in the rampant drug underground in Bristol. But does he practice or know who is involved with muti, and will he help the authorities?

Some of the other major characters who populate RITUAL include Mossy, a drug addict who wants to get clean, and to pay for the treatment he agrees to become part of a ghoulish business that deals in human blood and other pieces of the body; his "friend" Skinny, a bottom feeder who traffics in human body parts and has a deformed brother who looks like a baboon; The Walking Man, an ex-con living free in the woods surrounding Bristol, a strange individual who Caffery is drawn to; and Flea's brother, a young man who cannot accept the death of his parents in a diving accident at Bushman's Hole.

RITUAL is a bold, provocative and chilling book. The superbly researched material that is the landscape against which Hayder has woven this most fascinating novel will open lines of thought that readers may not have ever considered. The juxtaposition of Bristol, a small English town, against the mysterious Kalahari Desert is blinding in its opposition to each other. Her plot points also shine a light upon the way Africans live in England. What Hayder has done is override the media coverage of this problem, especially exposing the cultural blocks based in ancient religious practices such as witchcraft, torture and arcane beliefs. But can it be that those who are mutilating and killing young boys are really using those acts as a blind to cover more horrendous activities?

RITUAL does not read like a textbook. Quite the opposite! Mo Hayder manages to craft a plot rich in facts, each of her characters has a backstory that places her/him perfectly posed, at no time does the pace lag or become pedagogic, and the issues she raises are timely and exist in every neighborhood in one form or another. Overall the idea that things may not be as they seem is the major theme of the book. Some readers may come away from the novel considering it to be a cautionary tale. Others may see it as an excursion into an underworld that is exposed with all of its terrible facets.

Hayder shapes the problems and guilt her main characters suffer (because of deaths they couldn't stop) with empathy and insight. She also makes a strong point of how Flea and Jack keep everything bottled up, which makes life much harder. At the end, readers get a hint that maybe they are reaching the point where trust will allow them to talk to each other.

Fans and new readers will certainly find RITUAL a very worthy book, standing tall in the fall lineup of notable novels. Hayder has a reputation for being very detail-oriented, which makes her books both gripping and sometimes scary. But she always reassures her audience with her courage to face the ugly and "work it out." Those who are familiar with Hayder's work will be pleased to learn that RITUAL is the first in a series that will be comprised of five books featuring The Walking Man.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

After the page-turning "Birdman" and "The Treatment", I was hugely disappointed in "Ritual". It almost seemed it was written by a different author, in fact. I had hoped this one would have taken up more where the story of Jack, his brother, and relationship with Rebecca seemed to drop off a cliff at the end of "The Treatment", but it just left a huge gap. I found "Ritual" so uninteresting, I was actually nodding off at times. And this is a Mo Hayder book!

I've found that a number of authors that I like, seem to repeat themselves and lose my interest after five or so novels. Partly this is because of the trend toward series novels. Mo Hayder, happily, is an exception to this trend. Each of her novels are fascinating in a different way, and this one stands beside her best(to my mind "The Treatment" and "...Nanking"). One of the things I like best about her, is that she never pulls her punches the way a number of recently popular female mystery writers have started doing. I'm not sure why, but the best fiction these days seems to be coming from Britain rather than the US. "Ritual" is wonderful and completely different from her other work. I have a strong feeling that Mo Hayder will continue to be the exception in a genre that is becoming the haunt of careerist writers rather than the more talented authors.

Each new novel from Ms Hayder leaves me thinking this is the best yet, but that's what I thought upon finishing the novel before the one I just put down. Jack Caffery has been a companion now for some time and I want to know what he's doing and is he still seeking that which can't be found. I would like to think he is sitting cross-legged by the Walking Man's fire about to embark upon another thrilling journey into the darkness of human existence.

It is boring, disconnected and most of all, non sense! I don`t know what was more strange: the fact of a cop sleeping side by side with a killer or a cop that believed that drugs were the only way of recovering her parents! The story itself sucks, there are no climax points and above all, the end is the worst thing I have EVER seen in my life!

This is a good thriller if a little slow. I have not decided if I really enjoyed it but I cannot give it a low mark since it is well written and has an interesting plot. Maybe the depressing characters are getting me down.Caffrey takes a back seat on this one as Flea Mallory is centre stage. She is a police diver and body recovery expert suffering her own angst after the death of her parents two years before in an accident. Maybe its the slight veer into the mystic world that put me off - although there is no unexplainable stuff in the end. My pet hate is vampires and voodoo so anything that starts getting too mystical rather than mysterious puts me off. We got borderlne here in places. In the end not the best by this author but a readable thriller.