Christopher Rice's Light Before Day

Christopher Rice's new novel, Light Before Day is a thriller/mystery that takes place, in West Hollywood and various towns in California's Central Valley. The story opens in the Central Valley town of Avenal with Janet Hughes, a transplant from San Francisco. Janet is a schoolteacher that has, what seems, a strange fixation on one of her students who lives in a run down trailer park that consists of only six trailers. We learn that the young student, Caden McCormick, is always unwashed, wears dirty clothes and is nearly in a state of perpetual shock; Caden is quiet and keeps to himself. It is during a class assignment that the reader learns just how disturbed and disturbing Caden's life actually is; drawing what is supposed to be a family tree, Caden instead draws a picture of a dog with drawn like a grotesque monster, its gaping jaws twice the size of the rest of its body." In the background of the picture, Caden has drawn a dark figure without a face, its head rounded slightly as if it were wearing a helmet of some kind. On the back of the picture, Caden has written, "He's a demon, He comes every night now." And so begins Rice's new novel, Light Before Day.

With an intriguing beginning, the reader is taken to West Hollywood and the novel's central character, Adam Murphy. Adam is a young aspiring investigative reporter with demons usually associated with more weathered characters of crime novels. To emphasize his problems, we learn that Adam drinks heavily to the point of black outs and uses drugs regularly. Working for a glossy gay mens magazine that is often confused for an underwear catalog by the deliverymen, Adam, with a need to prove himself, is searching for a story that will be his big break into the world of journalism. His break seems to come when he finds out about a Marine helicopter pilot that has crashed his Huey into the Pacific Ocean, killing himself and three other Marines. The Pilot was seen the night before the helicopter crash with a man known to be the pimp that brings for the wealthy gays of Hollywood boys to use for their own pleasure. With this revelation, Adam smells a story about a closeted Marine that couldn't handle being outed as gay and starts to pursue his instinct that leads him to places where he never imagined.

I was a bit worried about how the novel was going to proceed for the first four chapters. The first few chapters are choppy and unsure of themselves, leading me to worry that the whole book was going to be full of fits and starts. It is not until we get to the point where the reader is introduced to James Wilton, a gruff, best selling crime novelist who is interested in the story Adam is pursuing about the Marine. It is when Wilton enters the picture that Rice seems to find his voice, almost a kind of clarity, to his narrative that was lacking in the previous chapters. It is telling that the Wilton character is based in large part on Rice's real father, the poet, Stan Rice who died two years ago. The Wilton character is the father figure for Adam Murphy and is, in large part, there to show Murphy the ropes of crime writing and ivestigation. During the time with Wilton, we learn the Marine's death is not simply because of a closeted service member's fear of being outed, but that of a gay pedophile ring the Marine is involved with.

With the help of Wilton, Murphy begins to learn more and more about the Marine's death, pedophilia and the connection with the Crystal Methamphetamine epidemic that has hit West Hollywood and the Central Valey. With further investigation, Murphy learns that he is more involved with the mystery than he thought . Through out the story, we are taken on a ride that seems implausible, yet in the skilled hands of Rice, the nearly implausable becomes plausable. Taking the reader from the wealthy homes of the Hollywood elite to the apartments of the Meth addicts of West Hollywood and the run down shacks in the Central Valley, we are taken on a complicated ride that takes us to places we never expected.

How the character of Janet Hughes ties in with the Marine and a pedophile ring is complex, but Rice tells it with relative ease and understanding; this is not to say the reader can sit back and let the story flow over you, one must pay close attention. As the story progresses we learn more about the secret pedophile ring that is more than meets the eye. It is the surprise ending that makes Light Before Day ultimately a satisfying read making this reader anxious for the Christopher Rice's next novel.