A Whisper of Southern Lights is the third in Tim Lebbon’s “Assassin”
sequence. In previous works, we were introduced to Gabriel, a man haunted by
the death of his family, and driven to seek revenge over the centuries. His
quarry (and sometimes his hunter), Temple, is a creature of the unreal, a thing
which can shift forms and demeanours, with a central core of violent malevolence.
They’ve fought each other to a standstill over the ages, and come, at last, to
this.
The setting of Whisper is the siege and collapse of
Singapore during the Second World War. The area around the city is a mixture of
broken urban wasteland, and the humid, claustrophobic miasma of jungle. Both
are portrayed well. The jungle heat pours off the page, as does the reek of
everything within it. There’s a sense of smallness about the human interactions
here, of intrusion into another, uncaringly lethal world. Each step is a
victory, each bitten off word a triumph. It’s an environment which seethes with
life, and feels utterly alien, despite familiarity.
The city of Singapore, in the moments of its surrender,
carries the same feeling. Here the structured environment has broken down under
the stresses of war, and the familiar humanity of the world is in decline.
There’s fat dogs stalking the streets, feasting on bloated bodies, whilst men
on all sides commit atrocities or participate –a s actors or victims – in massacres.
It’s a hell of our own making, and Lebbon approaches it honestly,
unflinchingly, and leaves the reader in no doubt as to the boundaries that
humanity will overstep when it feels it must.
Into this shattered remnant of a city steps Gabriel. He has
a singular attention, a focus on hunting down and destroying the creature,
Temple, that murdered his family centuries ago (and many, many others since).
He’s a man on a quest, in the purest sense, unable to look away from his goal.
This time, however, something has changed – and Gabriel is shown as, in some
ways, less certain. He’s reaching out a hand to humanity at their worst, trying
to recapture some of what he is and what he has lost.
Temple, by contrast, is a monster. Equally focused, his
reason for being is chaos, murder, the scent of blood and fear. Lebbon gives us
Temple as another alien figure here, one fascinated by what humanity can do to
each other without his assistance. But he’s an eldritch, poisonous, deadly
figure nonetheless, one whose purpose is singular, and who revels in it. There
are no grey areas here – Temple is a predator, and whilst not one the reader
can empathise with, he’s certainly one they can fear, even through the page – a
terrifyingly charming mad dog of a monster, each word a lie, each action an act
of violence.
The plot – well, it aims to disrupt the dynamic between the
two. Gabriel has a human associate here, one whose slow destruction under the weight
of Singapore’s fall is fascinating to watch, and whose fear and incomprehension
in the face of this fantastic duo serves as a conduit for the reader’s own
feelings. As Gabriel drags this hapless man along, in an effort to track down a
vital piece of information, as Temple stalks them through the streets and the
marshes of Singapore, they feel horribly real – dreadful, grand figures brought
to life in a world where such things aren’t possible, against a backdrop of
mundane atrocities.
It’s a great read – Gabriel’s race against time keeps you
turning the pages, and the characters keep you invested in the beautifully
realised world. On that basis –give it a try.
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