Disintegration by Richard Thomas

Published by Alibi on May 26, 2015

Disintegration might be the right word to describe the state of the main character's mind. It might describe the state of the reader's mind while trying to piece together the story. The chapters tend to be brief and at the end of most of early chapters, I was asking "What's going on here?" Since I am drawn to stories of that nature -- puzzling dark psychological thrillers -- I enjoyed reading Disintegration, but readers with different tastes should be warned that there is nothing cozy (or conventional) about this mystery.

The narrator is an alcoholic, a derelict, the victim of a haunted past. He has a complicated relationship with a woman named Holly who also has complicated relationships with other men. We never learn the narrator's name and it is not clear that he even knows it.

The narrator is also an unremorseful killer who gets a new tattoo to memorialize each new victim. He keeps a machete in his armoire because, well, just in case someone knocks on his door. But he likes puppies -- beats their abusers to death, in fact -- so he can't be all bad. He also adopts a stray cat he names Luscious. Cat lovers might end up worrying about Luscious more than the narrator, who lacks a cat's innocent charm.

The narrator meets a man he calls Vlad who gives him assignments and three unidentified drugs called Happy, Sad, and Recovery. The assignments involve killing people. Most of them are people who have inflicted their share of harm, which might make it easier for the narrator to live with himself.

Every now and then a very brief chapter appears that contains dialog from answering machine recordings that the narrator plays over and over. The reader eventually understands why the recordings are so important to the narrator.

Who is Vlad, what is his motivation, how does he choose his victims, and why is the narrator serving his needs? Those questions are all part of the mystery. Of course, a novel that is uncertain from beginning to end can be frustrating, but Disintegration gradually makes more sense as the story progresses. In fact, it begins to twist and turn in new and interesting ways.

The reader's questions are not necessarily answered in convincing detail, but we at least get a rough outline by the end. The story lacks credibility -- a lot of "how could that be possible?" questions go unanswered -- and the ending is predictable (given the story's mood), but Disintegration always kept me engaged.

Parts of Disintegration capture the tragedy of life in vivid detail. Not just the narrator's life, but the lives of drug dealers and crack addicts and rape victims. There is a good bit of darkness here and that might put off readers who only want to read sunshiny stories. On the other hand, readers who enjoy psychological thrillers about sociopaths are likely to regard Disintegration as a worthwhile read.

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