The Midnight Promise, by Zane Lovitt
The protagonist of this book, John Dorn, began
his business calling himself a “private inquiry agent” rather than private
investigator. After leaving the police
force, you see, he still had some ideals and wanted to distinguish himself from
the corrupt and ruthless types he knew in the profession. The book comprises ten stories, each dealing
with a different case, and each case is a step deeper for Dorn into the
psychological morass which bottomed only when he made a promise to himself.
It was a long time after he had obtained his
licence, Dorn tells us in his prologue: “After I started the drinking and after
I was kicked out of my home and after my head got stuck all the way up my arse. I made my promise in a border town in the
middle of nowhere, at what was literally my darkest hour. There was even a
clock tower chiming midnight, right at the moment I said the words, if you
believe it.”
The promise occurs at the very end of the last
story. Until then we are absorbed in a
world where Dorn deals with drug addicts, psychopaths, suicidal teenagers,
inter-ethnic violence, feuding porn-store operators and coppers who are burnt-out
or corrupt. He is sometimes willing to
take on a case unpaid because he feels sorry for the client. At other times he isn’t above telling someone
he distrusts to “**** off” when they beg his services but plead poverty. And all the time his own financial status grows
more and more dire.
Zane Lovitt lives in Melbourne,
Australia. While several of the stories
have been published elsewhere, this is his first book—and what a book it is!
As the narrator John Dorn is both intelligent
and reflective, casting a severe light on himself as much as on other people in
his dark and gritty world. While the
language can get into the gutter with the characters it can also be original, incisive
and vivid. This is literary detective
fiction at its best.
It’s not a “who-dunnit”: the focus is much
more on the people than on the crimes in which they are tangled. Most of them are unlikeable at best. One exception is Demetri, the lawyer, who is
a faithful friend despite all Dorn’s self-absorption, selfishness and cruel
ingratitude. And there is a kernel of
decent humanity in the detective himself that eventually manages to realise
some of its potential, as the prologue suggests:
“I used to lug my stories around with me like
caged birds, screeching and crapping and demanding all my attention. I dwelt on my stories, which means I dwelt on
myself. And sure, everybody does that, but I was the Super Heavyweight
Champion. I was the CEO…And that’s what
this is. This is the tumbling road to a
single moment that changed all that.”
The stories are gripping and insightful, even
at their ugliest. I could not stop
reading them and I’m glad of the experience.
And I’m glad to know from the prologue that John Dorn came through and
healed because of his promise that midnight.
“The promise I made was that I’d never let it
become about me. Or at least, never
again.”
The book was published in print by Text
Publishing in 2012 and is also available in digital form. May it be only the first of many by this excellent author.
