Sweet & Salty Reviews: The Supernatural Enhancements by Edgar Cantero



The Dish
Sometimes, I think that the staff at my local Waterstones buy in copies of Edgar Cantero’s work because they know I’m going to come in and buy it. Imagine my surprise when I found The Supernatural Enhancements sitting on a shelf waiting for me upon my last visit, in more or less the same position as Meddling Kids and This Body before it.

The Supernatural Enhancements is a supernatural (whaaaaat?!) thriller/ghost story told in epistolary format published by Del Ray. It’s a tidy little paperback at 353 pages long.

The Sauce
Our protagonist, A, has just inherited a house from his second cousin twice removed. Along with his protector, Niamh, a mute, Irish teenager, he sets out to unravel the mysteries of the house and its ‘supernatural enhancements’.

The Sweet
I can never review one of Edgar Cantero’s books without taking a moment to pontificate about his prose. Cantero has a unique voice that sits somewhere between Lovecraft gothic and a pop culture columnist. His ease with language leads to a lot of evocative imagery interspersed with delightful wink-nudge 90s references (including one about a rubber chicken with a pulley in the middle that I adored). Even in epistolary form, Cantero’s mastery of language still shines through and it’s a pleasure to read.

Cantero has a lot of fun with the epistolary format during the course of the book. There’s a brilliant gag at the transition between Act 1 and Act 2 involving the receipt for a swimming pool. In Meddling Kids, Cantero played around with the fourth wall in immensely satisfying ways and it’s clear he was doing that even when he was writing The Enhancements.

The stand-out character of the story is Niamh. Cantero has taken pains to pepper her with interesting quirks but these are secondary to the strong, capable way she performs in the course of the story. She puts me in mind of Conseil from 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, who, when faced with Monsieur Aronnax’s fall from the ship, chose to dive in after him rather than leave his side for a moment. Niamh joins Andy and Zooey in Cantero’s rogue’s gallery of characters I’d love to see running into one another at some point.

The Salty
One of my only issues with The Supernatural Enhancements is that it’s too clever for its own good. Cantero obviously went to great lengths to research ciphers and cryptographs for the story and one section of the book involves A. describing the logic he used to crack a coded letter, except that puzzles are easier to work out when you already have the solution. Still, we marvel at Holmes’ genius, even when we know that Conan Doyle already knew who the criminal was.

Unfortunately, it’s hard to marvel at A. I didn’t care for him as a character. I suspect Cantero knew that A. might not be as popular as Niamh, thus his decision to double-down on Niamh’s interesting quirks. And, reading into the psychological profile drawn up by Doctor Belknap, it’s not hard to tell who A. is probably based on.

There’s also an issue with the epistolary format going AWOL in the last Act. I tend to take an epistolary fiction as a promise to the author not to break format, but towards the end of the book there are two scenes told as standard, third-person narrative. While Cantero does play around with format a lot, this felt more like a blip of laziness.

And, for the record, no one likes Scully.

The Aftertaste
The strongest part of The Supernatural Enhancements is its concept. Without giving too much away, this novel gives only a glimpse of a much wider potential universe. There is a lot that could be done with a world like the one hinted at in this book. Indeed, the most interesting character by far in this book is only seen in the last couple of pages.

It’s a good book, worth reading for no other reason than to see Cantero disassembling and reassembling the craft into new and interesting shapes. However, it isn’t as good as Meddling Kids, which isn’t as good as This Body. I would definitely recommend reading either of those first, then picking up The Enhancements if they speak to you.

On the bright side, Cantero’s ability seems to be improving over time, which means his next novel should be sublime. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long.

Comments

Popular Posts