Diabolical devices

The Forgotten Room
Lincoln Child
Constable & Robinson
2016, pp 320, Rs 299

Lincoln Child’s The Forgotten Room, 4th in the Jeremy Logan series, is an innocuous title for a techno-thriller. What happens when the best minds on the cutting edge of research, lose their sense of moral bearing and work with inventions that are brilliant but menacing? When a scientist becomes a megalomaniac, when his creation takes the centrestage and all known values of good and bad are swept aside? Lincoln Child deals with this sticky issue in his riveting novel The Forgotten Room.

At the centre of the story is the suave Jeremy Logan, an enigmalogist. He is often called in to explain the inexplicable. Despite his facetious-sounding job description, Logan is nothing if not professional. Invited to Lux, in Newport, Rhode Island — a sophisticated thinktank employing outstanding researchers, Logan is prepared for the luxuriousness of the surroundings (he had after all worked there until he was sent away in ignominy, his work labelled pseudoscience), but not for the gruesomeness of the matter on hand. Strachey, an old colleague, and a gentle, life-loving person, has killed himself in the most gory manner possible. He had been muttering about voices in his head and when he could no longer bear it, let a heavy window drop on his willing neck, decapitating him. Olafson, the director of Lux, brings in Logan to solve this puzzling problem. And Logan, with his characteristic thoroughness, plunges into this.

It takes horror to a new level when the enemy is not outside, but goads one from within to self-destruction. One morning, Logan is an unwitting witness to the painful destruction that Dr Wilcox, the historiographer, wrecks on himself. The means Wilcox chooses is decidedly different from Strachey’s, but the similarities are difficult to ignore. He too is in an agony over voices in his head. As Logan gets deeper into his investigation, he too experiences strange sensations — of music in his head turning aggressive and vague impulses of self-destruction. There are others at Lux who have also experienced disturbing things, but as scientists, find it mortifying to take them seriously or talk about them. Logan quickly senses that there are evil forces at work that need to be sought out and destroyed.

Add to this the forgotten existence of a mysterious room without an entrance in the West Wing, containing a strange coffin-like box with weird appendages sprouting out of it, and armour-like shields on the walls. All Logan knows is that a few days before his death, Strachey, who was responsible for renovation of the West Wing, called a sudden halt to it. Logan is convinced that whatever killed Strachey and injured Wilcox has to do with the strange room. To crack the mystery Logan trusts his instincts and befriends Kim Mykolos, a sharp, young woman to help him “reverse engineer” the odd device, and bring him closer to understanding it.

Logan works precisely, piecing together the mystifying bits of the puzzle. He seeks out Pamela Flood, the granddaughter of the architect who had built Dark Gables, and therefore probably also responsible for building that mysterious room. After her initial mistrust, Pamela thaws to Logan and throws herself completely into the project. It is she who guides Logan into that covert room without an entrance, and gives him important information, which combined with Kim’s quick assessment of the device and Logan’s own empathetic understanding, brings him nearer to deciphering it.

One afternoon, on a slow drive back to Lux at Dark Gables, mulling over the bewildering device, Logan finds himself being overtaken by a SUV on a coastal road. Harmless enough to begin with, first speeding then dawdling and finally coming at him full-force from sideways, the SUV forces Logan’s small sports car off the road onto the cliffy edges. It’s only Logan’s quick reflexes that save him from hurtling over the edge and brings to him a new realisation. Until now, all his attention was focused on the sphinx-like device. Only now he becomes aware of a real, palpable danger. Somebody wants him dead.

From there the action accelerates, moving us quickly through unsavoury incidents. Logan’s supposed date with Pamela is rudely cut short by shrieking fire alarms. He arrives at her doorstep to find her house in a furious blaze, and the cold knowledge that this was no accident. Suspense builds up as the who or the what,  which wants him and his associates killed, comes fatally close. The last few pages are adrenaline packed. We hold our breath with Logan, run desperately with him, and curse luck when it is against him. Punch-packed action scenes of a James Bond film come to mind. An engrossing read specially for those who enjoy thrillers with a bit of technology thrown in.