Secrets of a secluded house

Salv Sammut: Id-Dar ta’ Ħdejn il-Baħar, Bronk Productions, 2011, 560 pp.

One of a writer’s greatest gifts, besides a fertile imagination, is an innate ability to capture the atmosphere that permeates both the story and the characters he creates. This ability is essential when the story is a full-blown saga of mystery and intrigue that make for the popular genre of the average thriller.

In his every book to date, Salv Sammut has always kept this important factor in mind. His imagination is fertile to a degree, the characters he creates are devoid of any plasticity and the dialogues are smooth and natural.

But it is the atmosphere he creates that makes his novels not only unique in style, but enjoyable to read, highly credible and uncannily realistic.

And realism is complemented by the natural development of the storyline.

A thriller is not easy to write; it makes huge demands on the writer, calls for the maximum attention to detail, and the pace must never ever falter; the plot should avoid dangerous digressions, otherwise it would invariably fall flat on its face and lose the aura of suspense and the excitement the reader drools for.

Id-Dar ta’ Ħdejn il-Baħar is a thriller with a difference. In this secluded house at Delimara near the sea, three married couples enjoy separate periods of isolation from the rat race.

Each couple has its own good and bad traits, all are pathetically human; each character is an intense study as to how the human mind works, how human beings interact; and the house by the sea gradually becomes a haunting symbol of human degradation and depravity as the author gradually goes deeper into the house itself and the purpose it served.

And its purpose went far beyond the periods of rest it apparently provided to the three couples. It eventually becomes a veritable haven of wickedness and corruption which involves people from all ranks of society, those in the higher one forever jealous to keep their lurid adventures hidden from prying eyes.

The house is ultimately abandoned but its ill-fame persists; it becomes a venue for illicit activities, drugs, sex, and is ultimately used for satanic rites.

The young journalist set to enter the house knows well he is in for some good trouble, but persists to delve into its well-kept secrets. He is helped by a retired police inspector, who was involved in various investigations about the house, knew a thing or two about its sinister past and was apprehensive about its present. And a terrible climax is indeed inevitable.

As he is wont to do, Sammut has resorted to a critical analysis of human nature, its good and bad aspects: compassion, envy, anger, toleration, greed, predominance, deceit, love, hate and, particularly, the ambition for power.

He also morally expounds on the destructive use of drugs, and the danger of occult practices.

Ultimately the victims in this gripping thick novel are the weak of character and those who opt to dominate others, while the winners are those who (even though in an ideal context) will remain steadfast in their concept and views of life and how it should be lived.

A welcome bonus at the end are four beautiful poems by the author which are a sort of comment on the novel and amply attest to Sammut’s poetic stance.