The Harlequin's Son

Thirteen years after Launay's last book (of two: The Innocence Has Gone, Daddy; The Girl with the Peppermint Taste) comes this psychological horror novel, first seen in England. It's no cause to rejoice: Launay's shrewd artistry could have been better spent on something other than this nasty story of a boy drawn into a web of madness and murder. The victim, 13-year-old Alexander Saranson, cherishes a hope: to find out who his father is and to pursue his father's career. His mom, Sarah, tells him that Dad was a soldier who died young, but his grandfolks' gardener, Tom Northey, lets slip that Dad is General Saranson, once married to Sarah and still alive. Egged on by his school chums and dreaming of soldiering, Alexander visits the General, who denies any blood tie. Distraught, the boy feigns suicide in hopes that his mother will tell him the truth. She does in part, revealing that Dad was a handsome and lazy actor, now dead, and showing him a photo of Dad costumed as a harlequin. But Alexander remains convinced that Dad is still alive, somewhere. The where is revealed when Tom Northey's granddaughter, Mary, shows Alexander a photo of her father who's locked in an insane asylum as a psychopathic killer: its the same harlequin shot. Joined by Mary, Alexander at last meets Dad, who charms him - dangerously so when he lets slide dark hints that the two should kill Mary's baby brother (Alexander's stepbrother), who's retarded. Torn between conscience and filial loyalty, tormented by homosexual sadism at school that Launay gratuitously tosses in to spice up the plot, Alexander is tricked into murder when one day Mary claims that she's just killed the infant: he drowns the body according to her instructions, only to learn later that she had merely drugged the baby, leaving the killing to him. Days later, Alexander beats his godmother dead when she confronts him with Mary's confession. The taw gets on to him, but he doesn't mind: he's now following in Dad's footsteps and realizes that a madman's career is the most exciting of all. Launay writes a tight story in lean prose, but his hero's conversion to homicidal madness fails to convince. And rather than prompting terror, this sad tale engenders pity - and leaves a sour taste at the spectacle of a novel devoted to the tormenting of an innocent. (Kirkus Reviews)