Clark's 'Confession' spills

Courtesy of Gary Benson Robert Clark's new novel, "Mr. White's Confession," will intrigue mystery fans.

Mr. White's Confession

Picador

Exhilarating, frightening and extremely intriguing, Robert Clark's new novel "Mr. White's Confession" is a tale no one should miss. The story opens as Wesley Horner, a hardened police detective, is simply waiting to die, his existence empty and unrewarding. As in all detective thrillers, a murder abounds.

A young dancer, about the same age as Horner's runaway daughter, is murdered and Horner vows to find the killer in an attempt to make up for his soured relationship with his child. Herbert White, a seemingly slow-witted recluse with a sporadic memory, is immediately targeted as the prime suspect. There is not enough evidence to bring White to trial, however, and the case is put on the back burner.

Wesley returns to the usual routine of hustling vagrants and stumbles across Maggie, a 16 year-old runaway. He finds himself drawn to her despite insistent inner protestations of morality, and her youth and vivacity begin to revive and heal his numbed heart. Suddenly, another dancer is murdered, and this time the clues that point to Herbert White are concrete. Wesley thinks that he has solved the case until he finds an inconsistency in a fellow officer's conduct. The plot takes a dizzying series of turns and gathers momentum as it comes to a satisfying, if somewhat predictable close.

The real strengths of the book lie not in the plot, itself, but in the development of the principle characters: Wesley, Maggie, Herbert White and Welshinger, Wesley's fellow officer. Clark develops his characters by telling the story from two different perspectives - those of Wesley and White.

Wesley's story is told in the form of a second person narrative and sounds facetiously reminiscent of cliched detective stories. The cops speak flippantly and act tough, and they seem to move in an inferno populated by the dregs of society.

Welshinger is also included in Wesley's narrative. He begins the book as a hardened, thoroughly unfeeling cop, and elicits no sympathy from the reader. Clark said that he wrote Welshinger's character as "the embodiment of evil." By the end of the book , though, he gets tired of being evil and begins to become worn down by his role. There is no joy in his 'job' anymore, and he becomes atrophied. His life is a sapping out and he becomes like the walking dead-a virtual lack of being." Wesley, Maggie and Welshinger add human emotion and moral questions to the rather banal plot of an otherwise cliché detective story.

Then there is White's story which is told from a first-person perspective: The reader comes to understand and empathize with White by reading his journal entries. White intended the journal to be a record of his daily activities to make up for the gaps in his memory. His writing style is fussy, almost stereotypically feminine in its use of language. Clark describes White as "a 19th Century man living on the cusp of the Postwar Age."

At first, the entries convince the reader that White is a simple man with almost child-like emotions. The dignity with which White accepts his situation and takes the blame for the crime, however, creates a greater respect for White in the mind of the reader. Clark said that he intended White to be the antithesis of Welshinger. "He's a better person than all of us. He has a sense of wonder and innocence, however disturbing, and reminds us of the trials of human condition."

What seems to be a typical detective story on the surface is really a moral commentary on the nature of good and evil. The characters' interactions raise questions of normalcy, desire, innocence and deviance. Robert Clark successfully contends that "evil doesn't really exist; it is simply the absence of good."

-Jenny Cookson

10-02-98