Review: Trip Wire

It is December 1968 in Chicago and there are problems everywhere. The Democratic Convention has been beset by violence, and black Americans are suffering. Cassandra Perry lives on the North Side, but the ideal world that she has been trying to create is torn apart when, upon returning home, she discovers the bodies of two of her roommates. Both have been murdered and Cassandra is determined to investigate, especially when she thinks that the police investigation is nothing but a whitewash.

‘Trip Wire’ is a very short novel, but Carter still manages to make a tight, complex plot that deals with civil rights and politics, two subjects that were incredibly important in the America of the late 1960s. Narrated in the first person, the reader is told the story from the perspective of a young, female, black American. This makes for interesting reading, but it also creates a world that is hard for us to enter. Carter creates a world where everyone is smoking cannabis all the time and its consumption is seen as entirely normal. Cassandra Perry’s behaviour alters violently throughout the novel, and some the things she does, such as the way she behaves towards her boyfriend, seem completely irrational.

The denouement of the story is intriguing and Carter paints a powerful picture of the endemic corruption of the Chicago police force, a force that, in this novel, appeared to want to assert and continue the supposed supremacy of white people. It is just a pity that Cassandra’s world is not more accessible to us. In one chapter, Carter writes that Cassandra’s ‘transition from studious country mouse to foul-mouthed hippie chick might have happened just a little too fast’. I feel this accurately sums up the main flaw of the novel. A little more accessibility and a little less swearing, pot- smoking and irrational behaviour might have made this an easier novel to read.

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Luke Croll - RAM

Book Review: Trip Wire