Vodoun

by David Madsen

Overview

"I just killed someone, but I'm not a murderer"

 

Vodoun -- to Americans who know it as voodoo, the religion is an exotic superstition; to a Haitian, a way of life, the source of hope, fear and power.  But in a shrinking world, the borders between myth and reality can blur, with terrifying consequeces.

 

Ray Falco.  Once a prominent, prize-winning D.C. journalist, now he's a burn-out case.. He's fitfully enjoying semiretirement, until a mysterious force draws him to the scene of a murder that looks ore like the leavings of a Haitian vodoun ritual, more than a drug killing.  Against his will, Falco becomes a reporter again, probing the disappearce of Jean-Mars Baptiste a firebrand Haitian politician.. His  investigation leads him into the mysterious world of Haitian exile politics, and to the Haitian revolution, the first succesful slave revolt in history. He realizes his fate is tied to Haiti's past, and only vodoun can save him.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940179945260
Publisher:	David Madsen
Publication date:	04/16/2024
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	471 KB

About the Author

David Madsen is the author of three novels: Black Plume: The Suppressed Memoirs of Edgar Allan Poe, that imagines Poe’s life as the inspiration for his dark tales; U.S.S.A. an alternative history detective story set in American-occupied Russia; and Vodoun, a mystery that blends the political drama of present day Haiti with the Haitian revolution against Napoleon’s France.

He is a produced screenwriter, with credits that include Copycat, the Warner Brothers thriller starring Sigourney Weaver and Holly Hunter

He is writing a new mystery set in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s, and he often visits a display case in the SF library to pay his respects to Dashiell Hammett’s typewriter.

Editorial Reviews

Voodoo, Haitian history and the U.S. State Department's vacillation and hypocrisy are rich and timely fare. Madsen (U.S.S.A.; Black Plume) fails to take advantage of these thematic opportunities, however; in addition, his novel suffers from a flat but pretentious style, an unsympathetic protagonist, often incredible plot turns and B-movie villains. Award-winning journalist Ray Falco, the story's narrator, has been turned into a murderous zombie by a Haitian wheeler-dealer who plans to return to his ancestral post as the power behind the throne (or in this case the presidential chair). Falco becomes possessed of the spirit of a young American envoy in Haiti during a failed 1792 slave revolt and writes a diary in that man's voice. Though readers may be drawn in by the voodoo lore, the dramatic comparisons between historic and present-day Haiti and the ``relentless, hustling energy'' of Port-au-Prince street life, Madsen's handling of historical details may prove confusing. (Aristide is not mentioned, and the leader of the 1792 uprising is fictional.) For a fuller telling of the ``tragicomedy of Haiti,'' audiences would fare better with Graham Greene's The Comedians. (Oct.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly