Two Days Gone by Randall Silvis

Poisoned Pen Press, 400 pages, $15.99 (c2017)

I’m tired of genre-shaming. What is the difference between a “literary” mystery and a mystery? (Or, for that matter, between a literary book and a mystery?) Is a plain mystery not literary? Bushwa! Are there more polysyllabic words in a literary mystery. Do I have to dive for my dictionary at least once every chapter if the book is literary? I liked “Two Days Gone,” by Randall Silvis. But in the material inserted after the book, Silvis relates how someone criticized his book as being too literary. Before I read this additional (scurrilous) material, I said, Wow, there are a lot of literary references in this book, and there is a dissonance between that and the tough-talking, prolific swearing portions of his book. Let’s discuss further.

The putative killer of “Two Days Gone” is Tom Huston, an English professor in northern Pennsylvania and a best-selling author. He is suspected of killing his family. This family would be Huston’s lovely, elegant wife, his 12-year-old son, his fourth grade daughter, and his new baby boy. A huge manhunt is organized to find Huston, who has presumably disappeared into the dense woods of Pennsylvania near his home.

Ryan DeMarco is the cop assigned to find Huston. The catch is there was a budding friendship between DeMarco and Huston. Huston had inscribed one of his best-selling books for DeMarco. DeMarco finds it harder and harder to believe Huston was the killer.

The intersecting chapters to DeMarco’s story belong to Tom Huston. He is on the run, and Silvis follows him in a limited fashion. The advantage of the third-person perspective Silvis uses is we don’t really get to know what the focal character is thinking. Is Huston guilty? If not, why is he on the run? It is winter and no one with any sense or overriding reason is out and about in that bitter cold.

DeMarco cannot find Huston, which gives him time to compile information on what Huston was last doing. What was he working on in his class? What was he writing, for Huston clearly had started on a new book? One of the first lines of inquiry was whether Huston was having an affair. That leads to a strip joint. And that leads to an entirely different world.

That different world leads to a different way of talking, a different sensibility of the world as a place of safety and nurturance. DeMarco forgoes his initial lofty language and develops a grittier way of writing. As DeMarco finds difficulty sleeping and separating himself from his past, the tenor of the book changes. It’s rougher, darker, nastier. When Edgar Allan Poe is inserted into this part of the story, there is a “Whoa! Nelly” moment. The tone doesn’t fit, but it certainly makes the story interesting.

Brutish, gory scenes play out overlaid by a recitation of “Annabel Lee.” In the book, Silvis invokes Doctorow, Yeats, Flannery O’Connor, Faulkner, and Chandler. There is also some humor — including dark humor, frat boy humor — and a memorable comment about dust bunnies towards the end.

Let me return to my original question about literary versus mystery writing. There are many authors whose writing is “literary”: Thomas Cooke, John Le Carré, Dashiell Hammett, Julian Symons, Tana French. There are many etceteras after those names. But I don’t call their writing literary; I call their writing good. What they have mastered is style. Style can be coarse or eloquent or something in-between. Consistency matters, consistency in style matters, plot matters. Genre doesn’t matter, except if you write about a wrongdoing, then you can call it mystery, crime, Benjamin, or skyhopping. It’s just a name.

Silvis’ plot for this book was rich and shocking. There were so many elements he had to draw together at the end, and he did it. “Two Days Gone” is the first in what is now a five-book series starring DeMarco, the latest of which, “When All Light Fails,” was just released. I enjoyed "Two Days Gone" enough to hope Silvis has done as well with the rest of the series and to hope that he found a smoother stylistic path.