After what appeared to be the solving of two bizarre murder cases, one from Millhaven, a murderer called Blue Rose, and the other, a serial killer involved in Vietnam, Tim Underhill and Tom Pasmore come back to solve the most baffling case of them all: in Millhaven, it appears that Blue Rose, or someone with the same patterns, is killing. Underhill has to reach into the past, again, to reconstruct the murders of the ancient Blue Rose, committed forty years before. In the meantime, he may discover some secrets from the seemingly placid town. He also has to remember other part of the old war, Vietnam, in order to stop this wretched man.

 

   Peter Straub has been amazing me since I read "Ghost Story" a long time ago. His style has been improving, and I think that reached his highest point in "Koko" or "The Hellfire Club" in what concerns about suspense. In terror, he invented incredible myths in "Shadowland" or in "Floating Dragon". But "Mystery" and the present novel come as his tribute to the old-fashioned private eye novels. As such, they are flawless, even if they are little bit slower than the others. But what Straub has done is not only a tribute, but a work of art out of the detective novel. And he himself mentioned that Raymond Chandler and writers such as him were one of the main influences in writing these novels. Of course he puts that influence literally (there is a part that involves Chandler and one of his best works)

 

   Indeed, Straub uses that influence for his own purpose. The investigation that leads slowly to the development of the plot is not only a quest to find who is the killer. It is also an interior questioning, an rite of initiation for Underhill, some cathartic passage that reveals what happened, not as a detached event, but as a personal detail. That's where the novel goes, as it did in "Koko". But the full development comes from the two earlier novels. "The Throat" might be read as a one-stand. It will be tastier if you already have read "Koko" and "Mystery", though.

 

   So, the characters are several complicated layers that are uncovered throughout the novel. And Straub does his job wonderfully, for one portrait is completed by other, or, at least, reflected. The trick works always: the shadows, changing interminably, reshaping, end up being at the same level as the others. The so-called monsters and ordinary people share more than the reader would want to know. And the poetic justice at the end is nothing, humans cannot judge. The ending reminded me of that in "Koko", where there wasn't justice, either. Because judging would be applying a line between good and evil within the human heart. And that, at least for Peter Straub, would be imposible.

 

   In a way, this novel is about ghosts, too. Straub even uses an old phrase from his "Ghost Story".And the horror scenes are extremely well done (I'll always remember the vanished town in Vietnam, as a voice tells me "ghost are always hungry") But, in the end, ghosts motivate the characters, metaphorically and literally speaking. Haunting, raving, the past always comes back to the present, in different shapes.

 

   Wonderfully written, if slowly, this novel closes in a magnificent way the infamous Blue Rose trilogy. I don't know how some reviewers said that this novel was in the "Thomas Harris way". Harris and his bizarre thrillers have nothing to do with Straub and his high-class mysteries. "The Throat" is fully recomended by this reader, who was shocked at the complexity, the greatness of this master.