Audiobook Review: A Strange Habit of Mind by Andrew Klavan

 

 I picked up When Christmas Comes, the first book in this series as a palate cleanser after an action-heavy thriller and was immediately enchanted by the mysterious protagonist Cam Winter, an English professor who is more than meets the eye. I was delighted to discover that a sequel was already written and grabbed the audiobook from my local library at the first opportunity.

While it helps to read these books in chronological order to get the full background on the main character, it's not strictly necessary. The framing of this story, just like the previous one, consist of therapy sessions, where Cam recounts crucial events from his past to his therapist, a much older woman who is remarkable in her own right Andrew Klavan is one of the few writers who can insert long flashbacks into an otherwise fast-paced story while still holding the reader's rapt attention, and in this case the technique works beautifully. The meandering nature of the sessions rings true to life. Even readers who'd never been in therapy know how our most important memories flow in and out of the back brain and the effect they have, obviously or not, on our present.

What we get, essentially, are two stories in one: the past and the present. In the past, Cam kills his best friend. In the present, he investigates an apparent suicide of his former student for whose fate he feels partly responsible.

If this sounds dark, it is. Klavan started out as a writer of hard-boiled noir thrillers, and is still able to take the reader to pitch-black places. However, since his conversion to Christianity, there is an added layer of hope and love of humanity that keeps me coming back too his work.

I noticed that this novel is classified as a mystery, and I suppose it technically is, but more in the mold of Colombo than Poirot. The culprit is known very early on, and it's only a matter of obtaining the proof. That doesn't make the story any less compelling, and the stakes are certainly as high as can be, but the nature of the tension is different.

The villain would not be out of place in an older James Bond movie, although not in the modern reincarnation of the franchise. If you read Klavan's portal fantasy Another Kingdom (which I highly recommend and have reviewed on my blog) you will likely see some similarities, and that's all I will say to avoid spoilers.

While the climax and the plot resolution are satisfying, the story takes its sweet time winding down, leaving us with plenty to think about the nature of good and evil, the line in between, and how a person might end up crossing one way or the other. With the protagonist being an Enlish professor, Klavan has an excuse to include more philosophy and poetry, literal and figurative than would be expected in the genre. If the story feels vaguely inconclusive, it's not only because the sequel is in the works, but also from the nature of the questions it leaves lingering in the reader's mind. And in these days of mostly disposable and forgettable entertainment, this is a rare gift indeed.