I'm not much of a noir guy, or crime fiction guy. And I have an almost allergic aversion to Southern prose. Fortunately, Shadow of the Lions is probably Christopher Swann's least noir and least Southern novel. Even more fortunately, Swann's talent is such that it doesn't even matter. His facility with language, his craft in building compelling plots, and his near-genius in evoking settings make me grit my teeth and rend my garments in envy as a writer. Most fortunately of all, Chris is a treasured friend, and so can readily forgive the noir and the Southern-ness and the talent and just enjoy his work. You should too.
My favorite of Swann's work is Shadow of the Lions in part because the genre conventions are more to my taste, and the people and places familiar and resonant. Having worked in the world of Maryland private prep schools myself, I recognize enough of the DNA woven into Blackburne to smile and cringe in equal measure. Wealthy parents halo-dropping their privileged progeny from orbit, weary yet snooty faculty, a culture designed at least as much to perpetuate class distinction as to educate. Swann knows this territory well, and mines it to effects both poignant and comic. I feel you, dog.
Enter, though, Matthias Glass. Why does he make this list? Because I feel him, too. A graduate of Blackburne with his own fractured relationship with the place, Glass made a go at being a writer in a world that chortles and guffaws and rejects such dreams like Dikembe Mutombo at the rim. And so Glass slinks back to Blackburne, back to the place where he first learned about the unfairness of the world and where he lost his friend Fritz under mysterious circumstances.
This is the drive that animates Glass - he is back at Blackburne to retreat from the bruising present but also to mine and perhaps even to solve the equally bruising past. With the plot well in hand, Swann ratchets up his mystery chops, and it's compelling to follow Glass as he navigates his old haunts and old memories in search of a truth that has eluded him. I think I like Matthias Glass because he's a smart guy who can be very stupid, and a bold guy who can be very timid. There's something a little too familiar in that, rendered a little too skillfully, for comfort. And discomfort makes for the best literature.
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