The Disappearance of Synesthesia, by Steven Lesk, MD, is a comic mystery built around a wonderfully odd premise: a wealthy, highly intelligent ninety-year-old woman vanishes from her home, leaving behind blood, medication, and enough suspicious evidence to trigger a massive investigation. Sheriff Buck Cormorant initially assumes Synesthesia Kankoor has simply wandered off, but the case quickly attracts the FBI, the president, international detectives, the media, and her billionaire son, Artemis. The reader, meanwhile, learns very early that Synesthesia has arranged her own disappearance because she wants a life that belongs to her. That choice gives the novel an unusual shape. The mystery isn’t primarily about whether Synesthesia is alive. It’s about whether anyone will figure out what she has done, and how far the people helping her will go to preserve the illusion.

Buck Cormorant is the engine of the book. He’s profane, stubborn, politically incorrect, frequently intoxicated, deeply suspicious of the FBI, and much more perceptive than the people around him tend to believe. His investigation unfolds amid mushroom trips, hallucinated conversations, arguments with federal agents, bizarre encounters with outside detectives, media speculation, forensic discussions, and increasingly elaborate theories. The comedy is broad and intentionally outrageous, but there’s a genuine detective story running underneath it. Details such as the blood pattern, the abandoned medications, the strange ransom demands, the supposed kidnapping video, and the death of Gregory Watson gradually stop looking like unrelated curiosities and begin pointing Buck toward a staged disappearance. That process gives the middle of the novel its momentum because Buck keeps returning to the evidence even when almost everyone else is ready to accept an easier explanation.

What makes the story more interesting than its comic surface suggests is its recurring question about who gets to decide what another person’s life should look like. Synesthesia doesn’t disappear because she’s helpless. She disappears because she’s fiercely independent and wants to spend what remains of her life as herself. That idea becomes increasingly important as the investigation grows into an enormous institutional spectacle involving money, politics, celebrity, law enforcement, and public opinion. The novel also enjoys poking at professional certainty. Experts repeatedly settle on explanations while Buck keeps worrying at the facts that don’t fit. His persistence finally leads him to George Castelanet and Barbados, where the supposed kidnapping collapses, and the real criminal element of the scheme comes into focus. The conclusion also gives Buck a satisfying moral decision: after finding Synesthesia alive, he agrees to tell the world she’s safe without revealing where she lives.

I’d recommend The Disappearance of Synesthesia most to readers who enjoy irreverent mysteries, eccentric detectives, dark comedy, and stories that are willing to wander into strange territory while still moving toward a solution. It’ll especially suit someone who likes satire mixed into a crime plot and doesn’t mind profanity, sexual humor, drug humor, or deliberately abrasive characters. Buck’s voice is so dominant that a reader’s enjoyment will probably depend on whether his chaotic, offensive, funny, self-medicating personality clicks with them. For the right reader, though, that personality is exactly what gives the book its identity. Beneath all the absurdity, there’s a surprisingly warm conclusion about persistence, privacy, personal freedom, and keeping a promise even when powerful people would rather you break it. Buck’s persistence keeps the mystery moving, and the book ultimately ties its larger themes of privacy, freedom, money, and institutional pressure back to Synesthesia’s unusual disappearance.

Pages: 212 | ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0HDB3YZT7