Smaller and Smaller Circles - F.H. Batacan - ★★★.½

AUTHOR: F.H. Batacan

NARRATOR: Ramón de Ocampo

GENRE: Mystery-Thriller

PUBLICATION DATE: August 18, 2015

RATING: 3.5 stars.

In a Nutshell: A Filipino crime mystery focussed on two priests hunting for a serial killer in the late 1990s. The combination of priest + investigator is quite novel. The *mystery* is fairly straightforward, but this book is so much more than an ordinary mystery. It needs some stern editing, but if you pick this up more for the characters and for the Manila setting, this OwnVoices work really delivers. Despite its editorial gaps, I was fairly hooked from start to end. Recommended, not as a mystery or a police procedural but as a culturally-accurate socio-political drama. Check the content warnings.

Plot Preview:

1997. Manila, Philippines. Fr. Gus Saenz, a skilful forensic anthropologist, and his protégé Fr. Jerome Lucero, a psychologist, have been called upon by the National Bureau of Investigations to help with a new investigation. The eviscerated body of a young boy has been found in a dumpster in Payatas, one of the poorest outskirts neighbourhoods of the metro. And this isn't the first such victim. The nature of the murders is such that the priests are spurred into action, but with the overloaded police personnel, lack of modern databases, and other, “richer” priorities, the proceedings aren’t as quick as desired. But a deadly deadline looms…

The story comes to us in a third-person omniscient perspective, with a couple of small first-person interludes from an unknown character.

Bookish Yays:

👏🏻 An OwnVoices Filipino crime drama. First of its kind. Unique in its concept. Brutally honest in its portrayal. Yay!

👏🏻 Frs. Gus and Jerome - the fabulous Jesuit duo at the helm of the story. The friendship between them despite their age difference seems so genuine! I loved how the two bantered with each other and understood each other perfectly.

👏🏻 The combination of priest + investigator – strange but it works! I found it impressive that there is not a single scene with the priests praying to God to help them solve the case faster. While there are a few biblical verses, their investigation is conducted more with their heads than through divine intervention. God helps those who help themselves, after all.

👏🏻 The depiction of the crimes. Not a happy Yay, but a sombre one, doffing a hat at the hardhitting portrayal. The plot gets you to really *feel* for the victims, even at an individual level. Do note that the murders are quite graphic and there is no attempt to tone down the brutality on page. I felt quite queasy at the start. However, I didn’t find the writing gratuitous, just unfiltered.

👏🏻 The investigative hurdles, be it the struggles of solving crimes without modern technical support such as online databases, cameras, DNA testing, and so on, or the police inefficiency either due to apathy or work overload. The investigation proceeds through the old-fashioned way: sheer manual drudgery and grind work combined with instinct and brains. The pre-tech-era feel is recreated wonderfully.

👏🏻 The subplot connected to a scandal concerning Catholic priests and their abuse of power. Never at the forefront of the core plot, and yet dominant enough to leave a mark. I would never agree with the solution resorted to in the book, but I totally agree with its accuracy.

👏🏻 The Filipino setting. From overcrowded Manila to poverty-stricken Payatas, the book brings the place alive without resorting to unnecessary exaggeration or biased reporting. I looked up a few OwnVoices reviews to check if the author had resorted to stereotyping. Coming from India and seeing what distortions many expat Indian authors have made in their fictional depiction of this complex country, I am wary of jumping to conclusions about a country based on one book. Happy to report that the Filipino reviews I could locate found the depiction of the location, culture, and the attitude accurate. I will always appreciate unbiased OwnVoices writing, especially one that is truthful without being preachy.

👏🏻 The depiction of the unwritten hierarchy in investigative importance, a concept rarely covered in books but often seen in reality. Whose death counts as necessary and whose is dispensable? Whose death will get all the attention and whose death will not even generate a squeak from those in power? A question that has been raised many times across the world, and portrayed excellently in this story.

👏🏻 The ending. Damn! I can’t say I didn’t see it coming, but it still shook me. I wish one particular development hadn’t occurred, but that adds to the realism of the story.

Bookish Mixed Bags:

🤞🏻 The book is promoted everywhere as a mystery, but honestly, if you pick this up as a mystery or even as a police procedural, it falls flat. After a point, we readers already know the identity of the criminal, and just need to wait and see how the priests catch up. The proceedings are fairly straightforward. But if you read this as a socio-political drama highlighting the crime scene and the social disparity in Manila, this book will deliver, and how!

🤞🏻 The secondary characters are intriguingly sketched. For every single character, major or minor or tertiary, we get a little glimpse into their personal life, helping us know them just a little better. At the same time, this also leads to too much of character background info. Disappointingly, except for one journalist and one doctor in somewhat small roles, there is no female character of note.

Bookish Nays:

👎🏻 Just one Nay, but a major one. The editing. The character development, the social depiction, and the few descriptive inclusions are all spot on. But viewed from a technical angle, the book needed much finetuning. The biggest problem was the constant head-hopping across characters, making the third-person narrative feel jumpy. Many important details aren’t specified. We see the why of the crime but never the how, further confirming that this shouldn’t be read as a crime thriller. We also never get to know how a priest can work with a university as a forensic anthropologist; how do the two worlds (religious and scientific) work in unison? I wish there had been greater clarity on this intriguing mash-up. The audiobook mentions the time indicator as 1997 a couple of times in the initial quarter; the ebook has no mention of the year at all! I would have read this as a contemporary mystery and been befuddled at how antiquated it felt, had I not had the audiobook to correct my assumption. Also, would a priest own a cell phone in 1997?

🎧 The Audiobook Experience:

The audiobook, clocking at 10 hrs 45 min, is narrated by Ramón de Ocampo. He is brilliant! There are so many male characters in the story, but through a subtle change in voice and tone, he manages to make each of them sound distinct. For the few female characters, he just goes soft without going nasal or high-pitched. As most of the book (barring the first few chapters) comes in a linear narrative, I’d definitely advocate the audio version as a great way of experiencing this story.

Overall, despite my disappointment at the frequent head-jumping, I was hooked by the grittiness of this story. Luckily, I am a bigger fan of dramatic storylines than mysteries, so the fact that the actual mystery in the book was somewhat straightforward didn’t bother me much. I didn’t expect the book to be so sad, but it manages to wring out a multitude of emotions.

This is a debut work, widely considered the first Filipino crime novel. (Wonder how! Did no one write crime in the Philippines prior to 1996?) Originally written as a novella, it was the winner of the 2002 Philippine National Book Award in this format. The extended full-length version was published by Soho Crime in 2015. It is amply clear that the writer is talented, but probably needed more writing experience. I wouldn’t say no to more works by her.

Recommended, yes. But only to those who would like a plot focussing more on the characters than on the crime. If you read this, let it not be wanting a police procedural or a crime thriller or a murder mystery (even though the story centres around major crimes.) Rather, read it for a tiny but honest glimpse into the Philippines, its general mindset and struggles.

3.5 stars. (As a mystery, 2.5 stars. As a realistic OwnVoices work, 4.5 stars. Averaged and rounding up wherever applicable for the audio version.)

Content Warnings: (Note that these contain major spoilers.)

Graphic murders, body mutilation, teen pregnancy, marital rape, paedophilia, sex abuse scandals in the church, poverty, classism.