Authors Michael Betcherman and David Diamond offer an addictive story in a refreshingly original format, as a journalist's hunt for the truth unfolds via email exchanges
A middle-aged freelance journalist with marital issues, a shady cabal of high-tech industry execs, a young woman brutally murdered and a California sex-cult. Add all this in with a cast of characters who have permanently forsaken the use of snail-mail, and you have all the makings for The Daughters of Freya, a must-read for any fan of mystery, though don’t bother searching the shop windows just yet.
Sex, Murder and Instant-Messaging
When freelance journalist Samantha Dempsey is told of an all-female cult operating in the hills of northern California by an old friend who has lost his daughter behind the compound’s picturesque walls, she sets out from her Toronto abode intent on both exposing the group and revitalizing her hum-drum career. Upon arrival, she finds a sisterhood of nubile young neophytes dwelling in a mountainside mansion and under the tutelage of a charismatic woman devoted to Freya, Norse goddess of sexuality. The Daughters of Freya are sworn to promoting world peace by ‘assisting those afflicted with a build-up of negative energy’ – a process that basically equates to frequent sexual encounters with random men met on the street.
Sam is troubled by the cult’s practices, but can find no real fault to expose in her article. Once the story hits the shelves, however, an anonymous email from one ‘Fred’ offers to tip Sam off to the truth behind the sect; a reality that goes deeper than she ever expected and which becomes darker and more deadly with every delving advance Sam makes toward the heart of Freya’s promiscuous following.
A New Way to Forward a Plot
Intriguing as is the story itself, The Daughters of Freya’s true strength and primary appeal lies in the way that Betcherman and Diamond have presented it. Using net-exchanges in place of narrative and forsaking chapters for carbon-copies, this online-only tale has been drafted entirely as a series of email exchanges between the characters, with the reader able to follow along as if bcc’d in a manner that carries a certain voyeuristic quality previously enjoyed only by basement-dwelling hackers and the American NSA.
The messages are formatted with all the trappings of an online commune and include many detailed ‘extra’ features, such as digital snapshots, response-threads and links to event itineraries, travel documents and other plot-furthering attachments. Such accompanying components are in fact a major element of The Daughters of Freya’s storyline and the reader must examine each embedded link with as much interest as the actual messages themselves. If the numerous magazine and newspaper articles (such as Dempsey’s cult expose) are skipped, for example, the effect would be much akin trying to piece together the plot of a conventional book after glancing over two or three chapters.
With no narrative voice, the story reads more or less as would a script, with each character exhibiting enough quirks and qualities in their ‘writing’ that by midway through the more than one-hundred messages comprising the story, a reader could identify most of the main characters without referring to the address headings. Emails from reporters and editors, for example, are as clear and sanitized of typos as one would expect, whereas a missive from a university student in a rush contains just enough errors and C U l8r’s to provide the appropriate tone and flavour without becoming distracting or contrived.
In addition, the email format also allows for an attempt at realism that isn’t usually permitted by the conventional novel. Betcherman’s and Diamond's characters miss appointments, forget to bcc each other and get bitchy like only someone hiding behind a keyboard can.
For those interested, The Daughters of Freya can be accessed by purchasing an account that will then send you regular emailed installments over a period of several weeks (again, as if you were being bcc’d by the characters).
A definite read for all those in the market for something both entertaining and innovational, The Daughters of Freya can be found online at http://emailmystery.com/dof/index.php.
