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In BLOOD MEMORY, the latest novel from Greg Iles, elderly men who seem to have nothing in common are being tortured and murdered. The grizzly crimes are carried out by a gunshot to the spine, then mauling by human teeth, and finally a point blank shot to the head. The crime scenes are clean, except for the cryptic message written with the victim's blood: "My Work Is Never Done." The New Orleans Police Department asks Catherine "Cat" DeSalle Ferry, a forensic odontologist with a world-class reputation, to consult with them and the FBI. Five men die before law enforcement has any idea who could be behind the killings or why these particular seniors have been targeted. The murders take place in the sultry south between New Orleans, Natchez and the Mississippi delta.
Cat is an heiress who has removed herself from her family and their money. She lives a successful and fulfilling life despite the gremlins that haunt her dreams and plague her recurring nightmares. Her personal history consists of suicide attempts, dangerous behavior, rebelliousness and substance abuse. She has been to doctor after doctor and therapist after therapist without finding the root of her perplexing personality disorder. As the book begins she is in therapy with a woman who allows her enormous freedom, which gives Cat time and energy to uncover the secrets buried in her psyche. She must find the strength to face her demons, which started to haunt her after her father's murder when she was a child. Her sleep is never restful, and while she can remember her nightmares, they stop at the strategic point where she can "see" what haunts her.
The bitten corpses are piling up, and after fainting at two of the crime scenes, Cat is taken off the case. She is mortified and returns home to try to rest and to uncover the secrets she is sure her family has been keeping for years. She starts to have flashbacks and is very unnerved by seemingly random thoughts of places she has been but cannot remember. Her mother is no help. Her grandfather is a tyrant. The maid is too afraid to tell her anything. Thus, while still concerned about the murders in New Orleans, she decides to stay home. This decision becomes an obsession when a guest spills a chemical on the rug in her old room and two bloody footprints, those of a child and a man, are raised on the carpet. This is the final straw, and Cat is determined to find the truth with or without help.
Sean Regan is "the fascinating, insightful detective [she's] been sleeping with for the last eighteen months." Cat is in way over her head with this guy, who is married and has three children. She has been a promiscuous woman and has always gravitated toward married men. They are safe and the commitment is fleeting. That is, until she meets Sean and convinces herself that she may have a future with this man --- if he will leave his wife and children. But he is a user. He is a spoiler who expects Cat to help him solve crimes that she should have no part of. He is obsessed about his clearing rate and will do anything to put a murder case to rest. He becomes very angry when Cat tells him she is not returning to New Orleans, and they have a disturbing argument that sends her to one of the only places she can find peace --- through the woods to the house next door where she knows she can use the swimming pool.
Cat has been a champion swimmer for most of her life and is an expert free fall diver. When she was in school her grandfather refused to build a pool on the family property. This forced her to practice in the neighbor's pool, which she discovers is still there and seems to be waiting for her. "I find a flat, heavy rock about the size of a serving platter. This I carry down the steps into the shallow end. After a period of pre-immersion meditation, during which my heart slows to around sixty beats per minute I lie down on my back beneath the water and set the rock on my chest. Free divers train themselves to ignore [the] first 'physical scream' for oxygen … which would send a normal person into a full-blown panic." As she moves through the different stages of acclimation she affirms that she feels "the steady descent to a state of relaxation [she] can find nowhere else in [her] life."
The author uses this scene to allow us into Cat's mind and to bring Dr. Michael Wells, a young pediatrician, into the story. He now owns the house next door and finds Cat in her underwear, with a rock on her chest, underwater and immobile. He thinks she's dead and tries to rescue her. They discover that they knew each other in high school and begin a friendship that offers Cat unconditional trust and someone upon whom she can depend to get her out of trouble without having a sexual relationship. He becomes a steadying force in Cat's life; his support gives her the strength to finally unravel the twisted events of her violent childhood, and she also solves the case of the dead men and their bites.
Greg Isles dedicates BLOOD MEMORY "to those women who realize in the dead of night that something is wrong, and has been for a long time. More than most, they know that Faulkner's words are true: 'There is no such thing as was --- only is. If was existed, there would be no grief or sorrow.' You are not alone." In his Acknowledgements he writes: "Accounts of sexual abuse are difficult to deal with, even on the written page. To recount personal experiences is nothing short of heroic. Few crime victims face the battles that those who as adults begin to recall childhood sexual abuse must fight. Far too often family members and the general public refuse to believe their claims, even in the face of corroborative evidence. None of us wants to think about the harrowing crimes that innocent children suffer in their own homes. But we owe everyone who has such memories a fair hearing. Please don't ignore any child or adult who claims that she --- or he --- has been sexually abused."
Cat speaks the final lines of the book, to her unborn child: "It's going to be different for you … Your mama knows what love is."
--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum
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