‘Till Death Do Us Part
Author: Greg Iles
Shattered, FBI Agent Morse is shocked when her dying sister, wasting away with a slow cancer, whispers that she is being murdered – by her own husband. Haunted by the last sight of fear in her fading sibling’s eyes, Agent Morse is stunned by the impossibility of such a murder and yet . . . yet there does seem to be something not quite right about her sister’s seemingly “natural” death. At the very least, Morse feels that she should retrieve her nephew from the clutches of his suspicious, and newly wealthy, father. Determined to risk her career and her life, Agent Morse begins to unravel a string of supposedly natural deaths and the spouses who benefitted from each.
Meanwhile, affluent Dr. Chris Shepard is enjoying the bliss of matrimony with his new wife. She’s just as stunning as she is devoted and charming, and he’s willing to do anything for her. He’s even adopted her son. Yet, his happily ever after world is suddenly splintered by confusion when renegade Agent Morse appears in his office one day to tell him that his new wife wants him dead. At first apprehensive, the suspicion begins to color every action and interaction Chris has with his wife, and soon paranoia racks the doctor’s every move. Reluctantly, he agrees to team up with Agent Morse.
The physical language of the characters, the flinches of fear and distrust, the suspicion underneath the grief, creates a tone that paints pictures. It’s obvious that Morse must react to her sister’s parting words, must puzzle out a mystery made of intuition and emotions without any clues or agency support. Following her instinct, she is left with only two tie-ins: one illustrious divorce lawyer (one Andrew Rush) and the other, nine affirmed (and conveniently beneficial) deaths of his clients’ spouses. Morse knows she has stumbled onto something exceptionally clever and unerringly cold blooded and, if her ability to sense danger is correct, she knows who the next victim will be and perhaps, by following him, she can unravel the truth of this string of suspicious deaths and save her nephew in the process.
The story is strange and compelling for its ambitious uniqueness. Could a mercenary killer and his organization of cohorts eliminate victims with natural, untraceable, means and if so – how? As Morse’s research develops, one common denominator is appearing for each dead spouse of Rush’s benefitting clients: a slow and painful form of cancer. Can you give someone cancer? If so, how do you even make sure that it’s effective enough to kill them without making the disease look abnormal or engineered. Is the thing even possible, beyond the confines of a science-fiction novel or a bad nightmare? For a gritty detective-on-her-own vs. the world story, with late night investigations and backroom deals, it certainly doesn’t fit the thriller murder motif and this is why we, as readers, just have to know how this entire scheme is executing so seamlessly and so undetected. The premise may seem “out there,” yet the writing evokes danger on an immediate and personal level. When the suspected lawyer is linked to an unscrupulous doctor, the plot thickens and it becomes evident that Greg Iles is going to pull off this strange, riveting crime story with a dangerously charming flourish.
The characters themselves are subservient to the premise. Their fear, determination, and general sense of high anxiety connects readers with them on an immediate and visceral level. Personally, our knowledge of them is limited to their immediate situation and knee-jerk reactions, creating an outline of the people without grounding us permanently “in their heads” as it were. We’re more married to this bizarrely entrancing plot with its out-of-the-box ideas and ability to transform the fantastical into something evidentially practical and even possible (by fictional realm standards.) Following the clues to the root of both the how and why of the killings is where the narrative’s energy faultlessly focuses. As the climax escalates so does the danger and the messy involvement of our desperate protagonists. Edge-of-the-seat and breathtaking, the novel transitions from a paranoid sleuth-on-the-outs mystery to a high octane thriller giving readers no breathing space before taking the final plunge into a gratifying, heart-pounding, risk all confrontation. At the conclusion, readers end the book gasping, resting from the fatigue of having been on a wild ride right alongside the battered heroes. We stop, hearts beginning to return to the regular rhythm, and we think of what might have been and what almost was. And then, well, the addiction continues. This is my first encounter (and first knowledge of) Greg Iles, but it will hardly be my last.
*A Note on Edition: The fiancé and myself ironically listed to the unabridged audio production of this novel while hunting for wedding venues (side note – we found the perfect one!). The narrative was unfolded by Dick Hill, who did a remarkable job capturing voice tone and character expression, yet failed epically with a consistently awful Southern drawl. We got so into the story that eventually, we were able to cringingly ignore the pasted on accent but, frankly, this is probably one that you’ll like better in actual text format.
– Frances Carden
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