© 2008 William Ahearn
No doubt it’s happened to all of us. You’re reading a good book and you think: This would make a great movie. The other day, I’m watching a French film titled “Mortelle randonnée” and I’m thinking, “wow, that must have been some book.” Others felt the same. Besides the Claude Miller 1983 French version, there is a 1999 US version of the book with Ewan McGregor and Ashley Judd and directed by Stephan Elliot named “Eye of the Beholder.” The US version is tad overblown and artsy-fartsy in places, yet the bizarre narrative still slips through.
The book is Eye of the Beholder by Marc Behm and it’s the most fun I’ve had reading a novel about a private detective in a long time. Behm was an American (he died last year), who had a successful career as a screenwriter (among other things) and wrote the story for what became “Charade” starring Cary Grant and Audrey Hepburn and the story and script for the Beatles’ second film, “Help.” His entire film list is here.
The detective has no name and is only referred to as the “Eye.” Working for a global security firm such as Wackenhut, he’s assigned to tail the son of a wealthy couple who has taken up with a woman no one knows anything about. The Eye, however, may not have been the best choice for the assignment as he’s slowly drifting into fantasies about his daughter – his wife absconded with the daughter as an infant and the only communication has been a picture of the daughter with classmates and he doesn’t know which one she is – and he has a festering obsession with crossword puzzles. As an obsessive waiting for the flame, he follows the young man and woman as the young man withdraws a large sum of money from the bank and marries the young woman. The young woman murders the man in their honeymoon hotel room and disposes of the body as the Eye watches through the window.
That would make a nice short story. Except that the Eye realizes only he and the woman know that the son of the wealthy couple is dead. As long as he doesn’t report it and the body isn’t found, he still has a paying client with deep pockets.
And so begins an odyssey of an obsessive detective following a compulsive killer as she travels around Europe and the United States robbing and killing suitors. It is only a matter of time before the voyeur crosses the line and becomes an unseen accomplice or intruder.
Much of Behm’s work is now out of print and I found Eye of the Beholder at the absolutely fabulous New York Public Library. It’s the only novel in the library’s catalog and I guess I’ll be scouring around looking for Afraid to Death and other works by Marc Behm. It’s finding books like Eye of the Beholder that makes sorting through all of the predictable formulaic genre worthwhile.