Sometimes it is the most exotic and beautiful locales that present some of the most sinister locations for the darkest of crimes. And sometimes what begins with seemingly the very best of intentions to help someone else that a crime of great immorality plays out. If a person tries to help someone whose circumstances places them in a role of victim, and that act goes horribly awry, what are they guilty of?
Lawrence Osborne's Beautiful Animals is the story of a crime, but the act is surrounded by such ambivalence, it's hard to tell what the actual intentions were. How do you assign blame, and to what extent are the perpetrators put to justice even if they seem to walk away unscathed. Does someone who commits an evil act, even if they are involved peripherally, as the instigator deserve to be punished, and what if the story plays out in such a way that they never seem to be caught, are their actions awarded with 'freedom' or do they pay in other psychologically damning ways?
Lawrence Osborne's novel asks these questions, or at least these are the questions in my mind that I've been asking myself as I read the story that has such a contemporary and timely tilt to it. It's one of those 'ripped from the headlines' kind of stories that hovers around the current refugee crisis, an evil under the sun story where the heat and sunshine of Greek Isles offers a most perfect setting for a crime that comes off almost by chance and in such a way that no better outcome could be asked for by the person who set it all in motion. What better place than a country based on reason and order and democratic ideals. This is a story that has a freshness and immediacy to it that is as stylishly presented as the characters in the book. Wealthy carefree lives that are juxtaposed with those whose lives have been thrown into turmoil only for the fact of being so unlucky as to live in a place of awful, life shattering upheaval due to war and politics.
Two young women, one British who with her wealthy father and stepmother have put down roots on the island of Hydra, and the other an American vacationing with her family, become friends and co-conspirators, though they don't set out for the adventure that lands at their feet. On a hike through the countryside they encounter a man who has obviously washed up on shore as human detritus from the war in Syria. They know nothing about him, but they feel obliged to help him in some way. It is the wealthy British woman who puts a plan into play that comes off horribly wrong. Yet the American allows herself to be led, and while conscience weighs on her, she plays along.
Had the two women not met, had they not crossed paths with the refugee, would this story have ended entirely differently? Was it meant as a helpful gesture that spun out of control or was a seed planted somewhere, a wealthy ex-pat family with too much money and not enough and not enough moral grounding? A sense of entitlement taken too far. A spoiled young woman who takes what she wants. A refugee who is only looking for a better life, or a place not beset by war and death. Who are the real victims here and who are the perpetrators.
Beautiful Animals is an apt title for such a curious and dark novel. A beautiful island, beautiful people but such dark and sinister undercurrents. Not so beautiful after all, no matter how well or good the women think themselves. It's the sort of story I feel like scrubbing my hands with soap and water after reading. As much as I was looking forward to reading the book, and it was a very good story and well told, it left me feeling a little ugly and dirty. It certainly, as any good noir story will do, leave you with some interesting things to think about.