The front cover of “Safer,” Sean Doolittle’s superlative new novel, depicts neighborhood scenes, at once bucolic, mundane and lovely – children playing, a man mowing his lawn. It is just such a life that Paul Callaway and his wife, Sara, wanted to embrace when they moved from Boston to a quiet Midwestern town, albeit not without some misgivings. It is quite a change, after all. Paul, 37 years old, is now a respected member of the faculty of Western Iowa University, and his wife associate dean for graduate studies.
It is the week before Christmas as the book opens. Paul and Sara are hosting a faculty holiday party when, shockingly, the police come to his door to arrest him on charges of having molested his neighbors’ thirteen-year-old daughter and possessing pornographic images of a child, crimes of which he is innocent. And the life he had had becomes a nightmare. Only he is wide awake. And from that point on, unimaginably, things only get worse.
Paul, usually not a “joiner,” with his wife’s encouragement had been persuaded to become a member of the neighborhood watch by one of his neighbors, Roger Mallory, who, besides being an ex-cop, has organized the neighborhood associations and watch groups under the banner of Safer Places Organization, a “citywide coalition of citizen patrols he’d founded himself half a decade ago,” and which is dedicated to keeping the area free of crime or whatever else might threaten their well-being. Paul gradually becomes aware of just how very strict Roger’s parameters are as to what is and isn’t “safe” for the neighborhood, to his peril. Up to that point in the novel, it had been merely engrossing. After that point, I couldn’t put the book down. Well, not literally, but very nearly.
The author has crafted a riveting read, one which will grab the reader from first page to last, and which will without question make this reader’s Top Ten list for 2009. [And I loved the sly tip-of-the-hat to Lee Child's Jack Reacher books.] Very highly recommended.
I think SAFER has one of my favorite opening chapters of recent years. I wasn’t completely in love with it like I am with Doolittle’s previous novels (it wraps up too much like a traditional mystery novel whereas his other books boldly subvert such conventions, choosing character over plot twists), but the opening where he’s brought in for rape charges while hosting a faculty party is amazing. He captures all the complex and quietly horrifying emotions that one could possibly imagine feeling in such a situation. I can’t imagine anyone putting down that book after reading the first chapter…unless they were too chicken-shit, that is.