Endings

The prolific Ms Richards has [yet again] re-invented herself and her writing.

This time taking her readers into a dark and troubling world. Then again, the protagonist or antagonist [Richards leaves the distinction to the reader’s value-system] is also in the process of re-inventing herself.

Written in an urgent first-person, present-tense style, she leaves the name of [let’s call her, the lead-character] unwritten – one has to be cautious in understanding that even good people can be driven to doing bad things. Like Patricia Highsmith, like Thomas Harris before her, Richards explores the linkage between the good and the bad that resides within the human condition.

When the reality of the lead-character implodes, her life torn apart, she is confronted by choices, by moral dilemmas as she gathers up the flotsam and jetsam of her past; reassembling them into a new shape, or is it a shadow?

Though marketed as a ‘thriller’ per se, Endings is far more than what was considered a ‘penny dreadful’. It is a thought-provoking parable of sorts, an exploration of the costs of re-invention, of redemption and questions motivation, and if ever the ends justify the means. It can of course be read as an exciting story, or if one reads between the lines, it becomes far more.

I found it useful to check the dictionary definition[s] of ‘Assassin’ when I put the book down. A fast and furious read, it will rest in the mind for far longer, than the journey that this novel took to read; the exploration of the perils of reinventing oneself in a world cloaked in darkness.

Despite the gender switch, I was reminded of a line from True Detective “The world needs bad men. We keep the other bad men from the door.” Because when the door is closed, we have endings – plural, not singular.