TDC Reviews - Trust Me by Earl Javorsky

Trust Me
By Earl Javorsky
 
Hook:
After the apparent suicide of his sister, a misanthrope tries once more to care about his life and the people within it. But the answers he seeks may be locked behind a woman enthralled by a mysterious self help group and a reporter who just can’t leave well enough alone.
 
Characters:

Jeff Fenner – Be it drugs, women, or just another bad night out, Jeff can’t seem to find his way to adulthood. Even the death of his sister Marilyn doesn’t shake him loose from his self-destructive trajectory. It’s not until he meets a reporter investigating a spate of suicides that he realizes there’s likely something more to life than himself. 

“Jesus,” Jeff said as he walked down the hall with Ron. “What just happened?”
“How about grace?” Ron said.
“I don’t know what that means.”

Holly Barnes – Happiness is illusive, but does it exist at all? Holly swims in these thoughts, of desperation, of self importance, long enough to realize she needs to look beyond. She finds some measure of comfort in a new self help group SOL, Saving Our Lives, and one of their mystifying leaders. But with the peace of mind also comes something else, apprehension.  

“You scared me, what happened?”
“It felt like I was falling again,” Holly said. The icy feeling inside was subsiding. “Halcion – that’s not a very common drug, is it?”

Art – Confident and relaxed, Art has a way with people. He wants them to feel comfortable, tranquil, like their best selves. Trust is important in his job, and the more people, especially women, who confide in him, the more he can help change their lives forever. 

“Holly, the Tonys of this world have their radar set to your frequency. Yours just happens to be set to theirs. Until you change your frequency, there will always be another Tony.”

Ron Pool – It’s easy to become disaffected. The reporter business isn’t kind, grinding you up and all that. But Ron doesn’t lose sight of his profession’s importance either. So when the bodies start stacking up like driftwood, the filaments of criminality string together in his mind and the old reporter begins calling in some favors. 

“He grinned back but wondered if maybe his hunch was wrong, that LA was a big city and that it contained, among other things, a lot of attractive women, some of them troubled, some of them fatally so.”
 
 
Review:
          
“She was very uncomfortable – She felt exposed, as though her life had been shown to be transparent and trite. She had experienced a distinct sensation of falling as he spoke, but anger provided the solid branch that she needed to steady herself, to come back to her own.”
 
Trust Me is a study in duplicity. Earl Javorsky, who hit the scene hard with his first novel, Down Solo, comes back with an LA noir laced tale here that, I’ll admit, I had to read twice to really appreciate. Deception, it’s something Javorsky’s characters practice on every page, but, perhaps unsurprisingly, so does his prose, layered thick with subtle foreshadowing elements that are easy to miss but wonderfully wrought when discovered.

It’s why Holly, the misguided but poised co-main character, is so sympathetic. Self-Help groups bear a dubious distinction within our hyper oversensitive culture and Holly shares these prejudices, even as Art, her creepy yet endearing sponsor pulls her deeper into the group’s inner circle.
Why this book works, and perhaps what strung me through to that crucial second reading, is the juxtaposition between Jeff and Holly. Despite her insecurities or her abusive boyfriend, Holly exudes aloofness and confidence, never truly convinced anything is as it seems, even when she is at her lowest. Jeff however, can’t seem to parlay a lifetime’s worth of street smarts into even one good payout. The story hinges here, and it’s important because without this balancing act, Javorsky’s tale comes dangerously close to cliché, losing its footing, plummeting as it were. It is here the author reaches out and grabs us to save his story.

While victimization of women as a theme is also, again, dangerous treading in a genre replete with volumes of similar plot drivers, Javorsky deftly maneuvers his characters around the board, conscious of toeing too close to the edge, and pulling back when he needs to. A less artful author could have botched this job, luckily for us, he does not.

As the story rolls to a close, the final scenes are at once predictable yet somehow measured in their relevance to the characters. Getting there is the interesting part but the resolution, steeped in moment to moment unrevealed mystery, is the joy. If you take the plunge on Trust Me, don’t be afraid to jump off the ledge. 

Review by,
J. J. Sinisi