Styx — Bavo Dhooge

Styx
Bavo Dhooge
295 pages
published in 2014

I hadn’t heard of Bavo Dhooge before I saw this book spotlighted in the Amsterdam public Library in their new additions section, near to where you hand in your borrowed books. It was the cover blurb saying that this was going to published in America that drew me to it and the back cover blurb that sold me on it. Raphaël Styx, a corrupt and aggressive chief inspector in the Oostende police, is chasing a notorious serial killer, the Stuffer, who murders young women, takes out their organs and stuffs the bodies full of sand. So far, so predictable, but then it comes to a confrontation between Styx and the Stuffer and Styx is killed … only to raise the next day as a zombie cop. Now he has to trust his successor, the Congolese-Belgium dandy Joachim Delacroix, to help him bring the Stuffer to justice.

Zombie cop taking revenge on his killer is not a concept I’d seen before, though John Meaney’s Bone Song is set up along similar lines. That on it’s own was good enough to take a punt on, with the icing on the cake being the setting. Oostende is one of Belgium’s grand old seaside resorts, being the favourite haunts of its first two kings, but having declined a lot in the second half of the 20th century. It also was the centre of Belgian surrealism, something that turns out to be important in Styx.

Styx then starts out as a stereotypical serial killer thriller, with the Stuffer preparing his latest victim for exhibition, on the beach of Oostende. When she’s discovered, inspector Styx is called out of bed to investigate, feeling every moment of his forty years, especially his hip, which is worn down and needs replacement. He’s angry and upset with almost everything in his life: the serial killer, his colleagues, his wife and his marriage, his teenage son, his body. Delacroix, a sapeur, especially irritates him with his youth, his fancy clothes and extravagant lifestyle, the antithesis of everything Styx himself is. Delacroix is a Sunday child, with seemingly no worries, though we later learn he carries his own cross.

By the time Styx is murdered it almost comes as a relief, the more we know about the mess he’s made out of his life, getting involved in sordid affair with gangster molls, taking money from small time crooks, not being able in any way to make his wife and son know that he does love them. The problem with this is that he’s killed on page 60 and for all the cliches in his character, the setup isn’t quite enough to get you to sympathise with him. It’s only after his ressurrection that Styx gets fleshed out, so to speak.

Styx isn’t a zombie story; there are no other zombies, it’s never explained why Styx was ressurrected and nobody else nor he doesn’t crave human flesh. Instead he seems to have awakened as a good zombie, better than he was in his real life, filled with regret for what he led slip out of his hands and wanting to make things better by getting his killer. To do so he enters in a reluctant partnership with Delacroix; both men may not like each other, but they have a grudging respect for their abilities.

The disappearance of Styx’s body has enraged the Stuffer, who sees it as theft of his opportunity to create art out of the inspector. Said inspector meanwhile having flashbacks to Oostende’s artistic past and slowly becomes convinced that they have something to do with solving the Stuffer’s identity. The Stuffer already had used the identity of local painter Léon Spilliaert as an alias, not to mention wore a face mask reminiscent of James Ensor when he confronted Styx.

I’m not that familiar with Oostende or its history, having visited it once or twice, but the local colour is what makes Styx. There’s a built-in assumption that the reader knows at least a little bit about Oostende, is somewhat familiar with the town and its history. It will be interesting to see how the American translation will handle this and also how much of the Flemish flavour of the dialogue is kept.

I hadn’t heard of Bavo Dhooge before spotting this novel, but it turns out he’s written some eighty books already, mostly thrillers of one sort or another, since his debut in 2001. A speedy writer and some of that speed is noticable here, as the resolution of the story is a bit slapdash. This is not a novel to read if you enjoy watching a master detective at work. Ultimately the discovery of the Stuffer depends on coincidence rather than proper sleuthing. There was a similar problem with the beginning as well, as too much of what made Styx and the Stuffer both tick was rooted in cliche, which only changed once Styx had been zombiefied.

Not an unentertaining novel though, but I don’t see the need for a sequel.