The Dream of the Broken Horses by William Bayer  (11)
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Blind Side by William Bayer  (2)
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The Magician's Tale by David Hunt (47)
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Peregrine (Otto Penzler Presents--) by William Bayer  (2)
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Editorial Reviews
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David Hunt's first thriller about Kay Farrow, a San Francisco photographer with a severe form of color-blindness--The Magician's Tale--was so good that it would have seemed unrealistic to expect him to equal it. But Trick of Light comes close enough to earn high praise and a gasp of admiration. There are more luminous views of San Francisco seen in Kay's own heightened black and white, this time largely waterfront shots of illegal Chinese immigrants scrambling ashore or huddling in shabby apartments. There's the same aura of erotic fascination, in this case with the engravings on rare guns. And there's the instantly engaging character of Kay herself, who never exhibits self-pity for the affliction that keeps her indoors by day.
David Hunt's first thriller about Kay Farrow, a San Francisco photographer with a severe form of color-blindness--The Magician's Tale--was so good that it would have seemed unrealistic to expect him to equal it. But Trick of Light comes close enough to earn high praise and a gasp of admiration. There are more luminous views of San Francisco seen in Kay's own heightened black and white, this time largely waterfront shots of illegal Chinese immigrants scrambling ashore or huddling in shabby apartments. There's the same aura of erotic fascination, in this case with the engravings on rare guns. And there's the instantly engaging character of Kay herself, who never exhibits self-pity for the affliction that keeps her indoors by day.
It's Sasha, Kay's Indian doctor-lover, who tells her about physicist David Bohm and his theory of implicate order, "a hidden order enfolded in the visible surface that we know." Kay uses the theory to investigate the murder of her beloved mentor, photographer Maddy Yamada, who left behind a series of obscure pictures totally unlike her trademark journalism. Sasha also tells Kay about synesthesia (the crossover of senses, which allows her to hear music as color): it becomes another valuable clue to Maddy's secret past.
All of this helps make up for a few less-than-fatal faults: too much reliance on Kay's ex-cop father and his handy connections to people with all sorts of dangerous talents, too many moments of leering sexual depravation, a predictable sameness among the bad guys in both books. In the end, Kay and her creator, Hunt, leave us with a strong story and a series of powerful black-and-white images deeply imprinted on our memory. --Dick Adler
From Publishers Weekly
Too close to parody for comfort, Hunt's second novel is a sorely strained procedural set in San Francisco. After the hit-and-run death of mentor Maddy Yamada, San Francisco news photographer Kay Farrow tries to unravel what she considers suspicious circumstances. Her first clue is a house with a green door, but Farrow has achromatopsia (color blindness that renders what she sees shades of gray). This might have been ironic, but all irony is spent in the title. Clues in a roll of Yamada's undeveloped black-and-white film lead to a group of collectors of guns (inscribed with "erotic" drawings) who are involved in sexual violence and murder. Throughout, the brief, staccato scenes are jargon-filled essays on photography, aikido and beekeeping, among other subjects, none of which lends much texture to the two-dimensional characters. The rich culture of San Francisco is missing; the language is clich?d ("Sirens scream! Brakes squeal!"); the secondary cast is littered with stereotypes. By the long overdue ending, readers are not likely to care what happened to Yamada. After the success of the pseudonymous Hunt's debut, The Magician's Tale, this is a letdown indeed. Rights sold in the U.K., France, Germany, Holland and Norway.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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- Peregrine (Otto Penzler Presents--) by William Bayer on page 11, and Back Matter