Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Author: Christopher Bollen

Have you ever started reading a mystery and halfway through were so agitated that you thought about not finishing it?  That’s what happened to me when I started Havoc, but I’m so glad I did.

Havoc is told in the voice of  81-year-old Maggie Burkhardt.  She’s an American widow who lost her only child and who has left the United States for good, just why we don’t know.  She’s cut her ties with everyone in her hometown of Milwaukee, and she ignores the tweets and calls from her sister and friends until they’ve finally given up.

At first she went to Europe, staying in hotels in various countries, until she was forced to flee; again, we don’t know exactly why.  Now she’s in Egypt, that country being one of the few that will accept travelers in the midst of the COVID pandemic.  She’s happy at the Royal Karnak Palace Hotel in Luxor, making friends and enjoying herself.

But, as Maggie admits, she has an uncontrollable compulsion.  In her mind, she’s doing a good deed, wanting to make people happy.  She sees herself as giving people a second chance, whether or not they want or need it, and is almost uncaring about the havoc she causes, so convinced is she that’s doing people a favor.  As she describes what she does, “I don’t make fate.  I only twist it.”

Then Tess and eight-year-old Otto arrive at the hotel where Maggie is staying.  Attempting to befriend them and learn more about them, Maggie takes the mother and son to tour one of the area’s famous tombs, planning to ask questions about their background and the reason they’re in Egypt.  Once inside, Maggie is delighted with her maneuver that leaves their guide outside and puts her in charge of the visit.

But when Otto tells Maggie that he saw her coming out of a guest’s room a day earlier with a yellow scarf and knows that she planted it in another room with the intention of breaking up what she views as an unhappy marriage, she knows she’s facing a dangerous opponent.

The boy wants a room with a video console and some gifts for his mother, he writes in a note he leaves for Maggie.  She knows she’s being blackmailed, but she doesn’t know this is just the beginning.  For the first time since she’s begun twisting fate, she has an opponent who is as determined as she is and will use any trick at his disposal to win.

As Maggie and Otto continue to undermine each other, we can see Maggie beginning to crumble.  As her mind deteriorates, so does her body, despite the exercises she does each morning and the multitude of pills she takes.  But as the opposition between the two intensifies, her body begins displaying ever more gruesome blotches and bruises that even her medications can’t stop from appearing.  The distortions of her mind are now visible on her skin.

Maggie and Otto are perfectly realistic characters.  Although we are seeing things through Maggie’s thoughts and actions, we also can understand Otto via his mother.  Both Maggie and Otto are sociopaths, a condition characterized by a disregard for social norms and the feelings of others.  Maggie covers her disregard for others by perverting her actions in her mind as things she is doing for their benefit; Otto isn’t sophisticated enough to do that…yet.

Christopher Bollen has written an outstanding thriller featuring frighteningly realistic characters that will make you suspicious of everyone around you.  You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.