Sixteen Horses

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I also liked the characters in here too and I think that is one reason why I read this so fast. They are interesting. And many of them in here are depressed people (as the events going on are so disturbing) but they try to hang on and get through it. They don't just sit around and say "woe is me" but try to do things, work on the case or just survive (depending on the individual character). The characters also go through big character arcs, especially Detective Alec Nichols and Forensics Veterinary Cooper Allen. There is also a very isolated teenage girl named Rebecca who is friendless and controlled by her father. She is the one to find the dead horses. I did feel I could relate to her and how she would escape into fantasy worlds in games (reading books is basically the same thing you know)... Alec looked up a number on the internet. He wanted to find out what it could mean, even if it was crazy, even if it turned out to be useless. He tried to find the meaning of sixteen.” And I did learn one new thing about horses in here oddly enough, about the groove in their teeth. It can be used to age a horse. And talking about the horses now it is sad that the only time that poor Rebecca was happy (and actually looked happy to others) was the day of her one & only riding lesson. That just shows people need horses. They need horse therapy as it can truly help heal people. And people also need to learn to stand up for themselves. A lot of the stuff in the story is about the need to getting others to like you, about fitting in. Well working with horses can give you self confidence (partly because they are such large animals) so it is a real shame that the horses were killed instead of helping these damaged people who were lonely. I don't mean the killer but the others who felt like outcasts (and oddly enough that includes the Detective). Set in the English seaside town of IImarsh, a town that is well past its sell by date and falling apart(as much the star of this book as the characters),when a farmer and his daughter discover the heads of sixteen horses buried in a circle on their land one early morning, Alec, the local detective goes out to investigate. The heads are buried on their sides, all with one eye above ground, the tails in a bundle near by.

It starts out with the discovery of sixteen killed horses, just their heads - oh, and their tails - in a muddy field. The local police detective and an animal forensic scientist set out to learn what killed them and who and how and why. All very standard for a thriller/horror/mystery read. (I am so not sure which genre this book really is.) But the more you read, the deeper into the mud of the story and the characters' lives you get. (And it is super muddy.) The locale: A fading seaside town, which we are reminded of at least a dozen times. Closed-up shops. Abandoned buildings. The ruined facades of amusement arcades, and so on. The investigating officers and other personnel fall ill. Anthrax bacillus spores had been placed around the horses’ heads. One of those infected is Alex, who crashes his car in a delirium. His son Simon is with him but when the ambulance arrives, Simon is gone.His hunger outlives him. His teeming gut, his microbiome aflame with all the bacteria and symbiotic juices, they carry on. All that life within him continues consuming and breathing until it can breathe no more. He digests himself.' Rechercheur Alec Nichols wordt naar een plaats delict in een weiland van Well Farm geroepen in Ilmarsh. Maar er is geen lijk. In plaats daarvan liggen er 16 paardenhoofden alle met 1 oog onbedekt. Ze roepen de hulp in van forensisch dierenarts Cooper Allen, omdat ze merken dat de zaak groter is dan ze denken. Er spürte Staub auf der Haut, den Staub all jener Wesen, die hier gelebt hatten und gestorben waren. Die dunkle Wasseroberfläche schien die Sterne festzuhalten, als stünde der Nachthimmel im Bann des von Schilf gesäumten Sees. Die Form des Gewässers glich einer auf die Erde gestürzten Mondsichel." Cooper is unharmed, and when Alex dismisses himself from the hospital, the two go on with their investigation, but now it’s a private one. Alec is looking for Simon. Cooper is there to make certain he doesn’t have a relapse.

Though the plot of the story may seem to be about solving the crime of 16 mutilated horses, each chapter, with a few sentences about the investigation, immediately digresses into an in-depth dissection, either prominently or peripherally, of the various characters’ lives and mental processes. Their wrong life-choices, mistakes, and regrets are carefully enumerated and at great length reiterated and agonizingly reviewed. Thrillers bevatten vaak lugubere elementen en Zestien paarden is hier geen uitzondering op. Het enige verschil is dat dit boek lijkt te zijn geschreven om de lezers te choqueren. Lugubere details en misselijkmakend dierenleed zijn orde van de dag. Het inblazen van een relatief nieuw beroep, de forensisch dierenarts, is een leuke zet, maar aan het eind van het boek blijkt Coopers rol onduidelijk. Helaas staat ze op dit front niet alleen en wordt ze gedurende het boek bijgestaan door meerdere karakters zonder duidelijk nut. En net als je denkt door te hebben hoe het in elkaar steekt, wordt er zo'n bizarre en ongeloofwaardige plottwist in gegooid, dat het spoor weer bijster is. De onduidelijkheid die het gehele boek treft zorgt voor een groot aandeel in de wirwar van het geheel.

One Comment

Het verhaal las voor mij heel verwarrend. De tijdsprongen en de wisselende perspectieven maken het er niet duidelijker op. De schrijver maakt geen woorden vuil aan mooie volzinnen en ingewikkeld taalgebruik. Ik ga ervan uit dat hij zijn lezers wil schokken.