The Maze: A John Corey Novel, Nelson DeMille, Scott Brick, narrator
Although it is based on a true event, a multiple murder mystery with a suspected serial killer who may or may not have worked alone. it is filled with a good deal of humor and light dialogue between characters. However, halfway through, the humor grows tiresome as it is always of the same vulgar variety, the dialogue grows more hackneyed and meaningless, and the facts of the murder remain unchanged since they are well known and based on the Gilgo Beach Murders. In short, the plot never seems to grow from page one, and by the time the reader is a little more than half way through, the only thing that has been entertaining is the same type of narrative which promotes erotic moments and trivial conversation leading nowhere.
Yes, the reader learns that law enforcement is corrupt, made mistakes and lies down with the dogs of crime, therefore stands up covered with their fleas. These facts are already well known as any who have researched the Gilgo Beach Murders will know. In the book, based on the serial killer of that time, John Corey, retired and somewhat semi-disgraced hero who has served in several branches of law enforcement in the private and public sector, continues to be a happy-go-lucky, danger-driven man who seems preoccupied by his couplings with women. The women he is involved with also seem preoccupied with him. After several marriages and one divorce with another pending, he re-engages with a former girlfriend he dumped to marry wife number two, and begins to live in her house on the North fork of Long Island where his Uncle Harry also lives on a waterfront property, and he has kindly lent him his home to use on other occasions. He uses it to chill out from his real life experiences that challenge his very existence.
His former girlfriend, Beth Primrose is in law enforcement, and she manipulates him quite well, drawn as he is to females, until he too is back in the business, working as a PI for a rather questionable organization called Security Solutions, unknowingly at first, searching for a possible serial killer responsible for the deaths of several recently discovered murder victims, all women, all in the field of prostitution or related somehow to them. Security Solutions and the local Sheriff is suspected of being involved with the drug market, sex trafficking and worse, like the murder of these, at first, unknown women whose bodies were badly decomposed. This information is learned early on, and then, for more than 200 pages, nothing further is really learned, although suspicions of wrongdoing are more and more confirmed. The concentration on sexual references and the abundance of raunchy responses simply made the book feel less serious than it should have and impossible for me to continue. It seemed to have lost its purpose. Since it is about an unsolved murder, I knew from the get-go that I would learn little, but I hoped for a more literary book from such a reputable writer. It seems he has joined the woke generation in an attempt to attract attention with too much titillating sex, violence and filthy language.
When I closed the book for the final time, fed up with the sexual banter that no longer seemed funny, I hoped that Beth and he would find happiness, that his estranged wife would re-unite with her lover, and the people at Security Solutions, that represented the murderers, would get their just desserts. Using people as they did, everyone playing someone else, without regard for human dignity or decency should not go unpunished. If everyone has a purchase price, our system is doomed. I hope that soon a book will be written about those who cannot be bought for any price, a book that offers hope for a better world, with better citizens who are not so amoral, but rather are educated and honorable. The murders were reprehensible, and I hope someday they will be solved and those involved will be brought to justice, one way or another, since the FBI is currently investigating new leads that have developed in Alabama.