Krimis & Thriller

Return to Innocence (Night of the White Lilies)

It is summer on the Black Sea in the south of Russia.

Mary, a beautiful and well-educated young lady from a distinguished family is wrestling with her feelings on the threshold to adulthood.

After the untimely death of her mother she had been raised solely by her father, a wealthy banker; now, after his remarriage, she views herself as being robbed of his affection, missing his absolute understanding as well.

Scared about the adult world and looking for her first big love, she gets lost in a lesbian relationship with her girlfriend Sonya.

When her father goes on an urgent business trip, Mary is lured to a faked date with Sonya into a deserted mansion on the outskirts of town, being held there as a captive.

First, she believes herself kidnapped in order to force a ransom from her father.

Then she gets to know Roy, one of the residents in the mysterious house; he's a dangerous psychopath and an ice-cold killer. Mary has to watch him brutally slaughter all her relatives and also Sonya.

But what is the true reason for this bloody battle? Why is Roy killing all of them? And who exactly is Roy himself? Will he kill even her and her father?

The happy ending will be held in Montreal, Canada, where Mary not only finds her way back to her father's arms, but finally falls in love with a man too …

At no point of the intelligent, well-constructed psychological thriller, the author shines as much as in the moment of the dénouement of the complex activities, when the reader learns that no one else than Mary's father was the puppeteer behind the horror scenario (he intended to get rid of his malicious wife, who denied him a proper divorce through blackmail machinations), and that Roy is the man whom fate has chosen for Mary. The reader relaxes and breathes again when the gigantic tense of the plot dissolves at last.

The author furthermore demonstrates great skill in dealing with motifs. Mary and Sonya are—as a symbol of their wild and unconventional relationship—the girls with the “unruly locks”; with Roy, Mary is connected by the “theme of the cigarettes”: “[H]e always had my favorite cigarettes with him,” she recognizes.

With their philosophical discussion about the polarity of our world, demonstrated by the example of dream and reality, the two figures also introduce a second thematic level into the story. Mary flatly rejects reality; Roy, her counterpart, argues that everything is relative, and refers to an equilibrium, a natural, cosmic balance rather than pleading for the clear boundaries and sharp contours of a black-and-white thinking.

The exceptionally detailed and minutely descriptive writing style of the author completes the tone of the genre

Misikova stages a theater of the absurd with a strong, reader-attractive atmosphere.

Hugo Meier
14.04.2014

 
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Das Buch:

Yuliana Misikova: Return to Innocence (Night of the White Lilies)

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Frankfurt: August von Goethe Literaturverlag 2014
286 S., € 19,80
ISBN: 978-3-8372-1391-1

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