THE GENIUS
Jesse Kellerman
Putnam Adult
Thriller
ISBN: 9780399154591

Jesse Kellerman’s bibliography does not run long --- THE GENIUS is his third novel --- but his talent runs deep. There were hints of it in SUNSTROKE and fulfillment of the promise in TROUBLE. But THE GENIUS takes you places you haven’t been before, at least not often. The book has elements of genre fiction --- be it mystery, thriller and suspense --- but, as narrator Ethan Muller hastens to tell us at the beginning of this astounding work, it might be a detective story, though he is no detective. He is dogged, however, and sometimes --- as in THE GENIUS --- that is enough.

Muller is hardly born to the role of gumshoe, amateur or otherwise. The estranged son of a third-generation industrialist, Muller is a flavor of the month dealer in contemporary art who literally stumbles into a treasure trove of which most of his peers only dream. A reclusive, secretive slum dweller named Victor Cracke has disappeared from his tenement apartment, leaving behind an incredible and breathtaking cache of his artwork. Cracke’s work --- a series of interconnecting drawings that seem to document a world more real than our own --- is brilliant, and Muller recognizes it as same. He tries, halfheartedly at best, to locate Cracke, but the man seems to have vanished into thin air. Muller nonetheless has a showing of Cracke’s work, and both of their names are on everyone’s lips, with Muller’s reputation, at least for the moment, assured.

Things take an interesting turn, however, when a newspaper article concerning Muller’s gallery, with a reproduction of Cracke’s work, attracts the attention of Lee McGrath, a retired and terminally ill homicide cop. One of Cracke’s illustrations demonstrates a familiarity with the victim of one of McGrath’s unsolved cases. McGrath contacts Muller, who develops a slow but strong attraction toward McGrath’s daughter Samantha, a quietly complex woman with the New York District Attorney’s office. Muller, somewhat self-absorbed at the beginning of THE GENIUS, becomes obsessed with finding Cracke, and perhaps obtaining not only some long-overdue justice for a murder victim, but also some closure for McGrath.

Yes, this sounds like a mystery novel. But THE GENIUS only begins here. Its true story, like the best of any genre fiction, is about the people involved, with the ultimate barometer being the degree to which the reader cares about them. And you will care plenty. You will want --- ache for --- Muller and Samantha to, however improbably, get together; for McGrath to solve his last case; for the true story of Cracke to be revealed, whether for good or for ill. You’ll get some of those things, and maybe all of them, to varying degrees, as well as an ending that will bring tears to your eyes. But what ultimately makes it a fabulous work is the backstory that Kellerman parcels out in time-release sections, so that even if you think you have it all figured out, you won’t know it all. Not until the very end, in any event.

With THE GENIUS, Kellerman attains --- however prematurely --- master status in his chosen craft. The frightening thing is, as wonderful as the novel is, I have a feeling that we have yet to see this man’s best work.

    --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

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