Book Review: The Culprits

Strange hands push Hank Wallins — loner, computer operator, tinnitus sufferer — onto the tracks of a Toronto subway. He will scramble out of the way, narrowly escaping the train; he will try to give this survival meaning by finding an email-ordered Russian bride. But before all that, just for a moment, he hovers.

Later, in St. Petersburg, Hank learns “there was more than one type of hovering.” With her crossed eyes and curves, Anna bears a surprising resemblance to a French prostitute from Hank’s youth. Lovestruck, he implores her to come to Canada. Though hesitant to leave her city and ex-boyfriend Ruslan (who, incidentally, is a dead ringer for a local rock star), she complies. From there, The Culprits oscillates back and forth across the Atlantic, keeping up with Hank and Anna but never losing sight of Ruslan. Mistaken for a Chechen terrorist, he is subjected to mind-altering drugs and an array of tortures. Hough’s description here is unflinching, and these scenes are the novel’s most powerful.

Elsewhere, the author is at his best when exploring the current of tension that runs between two separate concepts — between fact and fiction, East and West, Toronto’s polite neighbourhoods and St. Petersburg’s corrupt underbelly. While the cover of The Culprits calls it “A Love Story,” Hough’s curious narrator insists at the outset this is a tale of death. Ultimately, it’s both, and the one plays off the other. Early in the novel, the narrator wonders, “Is there anything more enticing than contradiction?” Not when it drives a narrative so successfully.

Which is why it’s disappointing to find Hough stalled on certain simplicities. Hank’s good-guy persona could have benefited from a bit of contradiction. Also, the author proves too enamoured of his title. In the first hundred pages alone, we learn that, among others, “Demerol . . . was the culprit,” “low electrolytes were the culprit,” and “the culprit, of course, was the month of April.” Here, Hough is guilty of distracting from an otherwise compelling read.