cover image The Investigator

The Investigator

Richard Moore. Story Line Press, $18.95 (220pp) ISBN 978-0-934257-77-0

From the start of this self-conscious debut novel it's obvious that protagonist Archibald Bromley is going to cross the thin line from eccentricity into madness. An aimless, middle-aged loner, he still lives with his older, unmarried brother and sister in the expensive New England house their father, a successful neurosurgeon, built in the '20s. Archibald, it seems, had been a lovable, high-spirited teenager, but something started to go seriously wrong in high school, and after a stint in the Army he returned home for good. His days are spent puttering around the property, his old pants constantly about to fall off, his neuroses limited to plots to do in the neighbors' dog. Suddenly Archibald takes it into his head that his brother and sister are lovers. He spies on them, gathering ``incontestable proof'' that will justify sending them to the fiery death he has planned. Archibald's brief fling with a toothpaste heiress is an odd, rather jolting break from his grim obsession with his siblings. Poet Moore's ( The Education of a Mouse ) bitter commentary on the ``poor little rich kid'' syndrome which afflicts many of his characters relies on the skimpiest of plots; accordingly, this seems more a sketch than a novel. (Aug.)