7. Monstrum

Monstrum by Donald James

This one was a total shot in the dark. I grabbed it off the shelf at the used book store. I wanted to read a book from an author I had never heard of. Mixed in with all the Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Tom Clancy, Michael Crichton, etc., was a single copy of this book. I think I picked it up because the name of the beast in the book "Night Church" was called Monstrum. I didn't know the story took place in Russia. That was a pleasant surprise.

Russia. 2015. A revolution between the Nationalist-Democrats and the Anarchist-Communists has ended with the former victorious. Inspector Constantin Vadim, a nationalist policeman, is the ex-husband of Julia Petrovna, an infamous anarchist general who leads an all female army. Vadim is assigned to lead a homicide unit in Moscow and must catch a serial killer who is murdering young women and stealing their organs. Vadim is also a double for the new vice president and fills in as the later at some events.

There are multiple plots in this story. The murders and the serial killer are completely separate from the story line concerning Julia and the heads of government. In typical thriller fashion it all gets tied together in the end.

The story was pretty good. It took me a while to get interested, but after reading the first two thirds of the book it got very exciting. I had to turn the page to see what happened. I could not put it down for the last 150 pages.

I found something interesting. There are characters in the book that are street children. They live in an old abandoned metro station with other displaced people. In the story the street kids have strange names. Sex-change, Doc Marten, Sparkplug, Lemon, Burger King. It explains that the children have been orphaned and lived there for so long that they did not know their own names. They gave themselves names. These are the names they chose for themselves.

I know these street kids really exist. They live in the sewers and metro stations in Kiev. We have seen them walking around. The book made me think. I wondered if any of the people I saw did not know their own names. How many have no idea who they are?

SAT Words:

Sozzled drunk; inebriated

Anathema a person or thing detested or loathed

Satyriasis Excessive, often uncontrollable sexual desire in and behavior by a man.
Sinecure an office or position requiring little or no work, esp. one yielding profitable returns.

Detritus any disintegrated material; debris.

Insouciant free from concern, worry, or anxiety; carefree; nonchalant.

Bacchanalian used of riotously drunken merrymaking