Shadow Players (Body Holiday, Book 2)

SETTLING OLD SCORES

Milla Carter, feisty all action heroine of Derek E Pearson’s science fiction debut novel Body Holiday, is back in the critically acclaimed sequel Shadow Players. Having survived betrayal and an abstract of death, Milla is on a mission to annihilate both the Body Holiday Foundation and its creepy founder. The thirst for revenge is understandable as this is a business that turns a profit from normalising some of the most depraved forms of human behaviour. Every verbal negative doesn’t do justice to the depths of its moral rottenness, which is why Milla Carter is the self-appointed executioner in chief! Her mission will not be easy as the Foundation draws its power from an ability to manipulate dreams while enjoying the benefits of having friends in high places. Forewarned is forearmed which is why Milla won’t be taking on the enemy by herself. Allies Reg and Bill (who appear in Body Holiday’s postscript), are also looking to settle a few scores after bearing witness to some of the Foundation’s many atrocities. The friends become a formidable trio when Reg and Bill align their physical and spatial skills with Milla’s telepathic capabilities.

Pearson lays the ground for an adventure that is technical, highly structured yet always enthralling. There are breath taking journeys across space, encounters with Saturn’s rings, alternative worlds born from a fusion of cosmic matter with human souls and a magnificent African landscape that smoulders with sexual heat and a frisson of violence. Nothing is ever quite what it seems, which is why guardedness is an absolute when new characters are introduced into the narrative mix. The charismatic Boss Elasie, who manages Ruth and Pearce’s luxurious Namibian hideaway, has a “lion’s roar” of a voice that instantly commands attention. Her smile, like her generosity, is encompassing but does that make her trustworthy?

Against the backdrop of uncertainty and violence, are moments of poignancy. Ruth, whose physical beauty is both a curse and a blessing, mourns the child she knows she will never have. She bears her infertility with courage although the yearning for motherhood will often strike when she is at her most vulnerable. As she falls into a deep sleep on the journey to Namibia, she instinctively strokes the leather of the car seat “as if it was the cheek of a small beloved face”. Pearce can only watch and silently weep.

Pearson is a shrewd observer of his fictional environment. Descriptions of people, places, and food are so rich with linguistic and visual texture that we are pulled into the sensations of each encounter. We can almost taste the chill from a sip of cold water, or feel Ruth’s physical relief when she runs into the shade of her Namibian retreat to avoid the sun’s heat.

A Derek E Pearson novel would be flat without his trade mark “in your face” dialogue or scenes of sexual explicitness. The “full-on” nature of the material may not be to everyone’s liking, but isn’t that the point of provocative literature? In the final analysis, it is a take it or leave it choice. For those easily offended by swearing or graphic scenes of coupling, Pearson is a writer to walk away from. Yet it’s worth remembering that there is nothing gratuitous about his liberal use of profanities or vivid descriptions of extreme sexual behaviour. The images and words are unsettling because he is deliberately challenging the reader to acknowledge the existence of what is distasteful. The crimes perpetrated by the Body Holiday Foundation may be fictitious, but much of what it does is already happening in the twenty first century world. If you value contemporary themes in a narrative that is intricate and compelling, then stick with him.

Milla Carter understands the Body Holiday Foundation for what it is: a corrupt, greedy entity shamelessly pursuing the goals of social and political domination. She knows the moral depths it is willing to plumb because she was the victim who beat the odds and survived its wickedness. Milla has natural justice on her side and that lends credibility to her mission.

However, the Body Holiday Foundation is not one to give up without a fight and its weapon of choice in the final, brilliant plot twist is enough to make a grown man cry!

Reviewed by Juliette Foster