Question about THE FACTS OF DEATH
BondFan777
Posts: 4MI6 Agent
In THE FACTS OF DEATH, the Decada leave little Greek statues by their victims' bodies. The second statue was Hera, the third was Poseidon, and the fourth was Ares. But what was the FIRST statue? There is some reference that it was a tribute to the Ancient Greeks but I'm not clear what statue it was. Does anyone know? Or was there no statue for the first death? Thank you.
Comments
That's an interesting observation, @BondFan777. To be honest it's been so long since I last read The Facts of Death (the summer of 1999) that I had totally forgotten about the statues left at each of the victims' bodies. Come to think if it, that was a calling card for Decada similar to the blood-tipped roses that the serial killer David Dragonpol had children leave at the graves of his victims in John Gardner's Never Send Flowers (1993).
I'll have a look at my copy of The Facts of Death to see if I can find any clues in the text. I'm just guessing here, but it could perhaps be an error not spotted at the editing or proofing stage of the novel and thus only the later statues were mentioned. I have seen small mistakes like this creeping into some of the Bond continuation novels in particular and this is documented in some articles online and on forums such as this one.
Yes, good point about the calling cards. The Decade with the statues and Dragonpol with the blood-tipped roses. Will have to rack my brain to see if there are any other "calling card" murders. Scorpius had a credit card murder in it. Close but no cigar.
Yes, I just thought of that thanks to your post. The "calling card" is of course a staple of serial killer fiction (and in real life too). Gardner had an interest in criminology and crime fiction and even wrote two police procedural novels featuring his detective character Derek Torry in the late 60s and early 70s. He later returned to detective fiction with his WWII set Suzie Mountford novels near the end of his writing career. On the calling cards front another one that comes to mind is the cutting out of the tongues of the victims in Gardner's No Deals, Mr Bond (1987).
To get back to the question in hand I've been studying this passage (photo above taken from the UK Coronet paperback edition of TFOD) and have come to a conclusion. The three Greek Gods you mentioned (Hera, Poseidon and Ares) were statues as they were more definable things - gods and deity. The first tribute was in contrast to this of a more general nature - "to the Ancient Greeks" (plural as opposed to the singular) who built the structures Ancient Greece is famous for. As these people (not gods) are multiples they would presumably not be adequately represented in statue form like a singular small bust of a god could be. Therefore, perhaps the tribute killing "sacrifice" in the temple was deemed enough on its own without the use of the "calling card" of the little Greek statues left by the bodies. Perhaps the Decada believe that only the gods should be left at the site of the killings and not mere mortals? That's just my take on it, for what it's worth.
If you haven't written an article on this for the Bondologist Blog then I think you should, this is essential stuff.
Possibly solved. Some of the murders took place in Cyprus, which is off Greece. However, the Decada wanted to connect the bodies to Greece and the temple. As a stand-in, they left the statuettes. Or as Bond explains, the "statuettes could be substitute for the temple."
That was just some brainstorming but I'm probably way off there. I sometimes have a tendency to read too much into things. I've not written anything about The Facts of Death as yet on The Bondologist Blog or very much on Benson's novels either. I do have a few ideas for Benson articles but none of them involve The Facts of Death sadly. I need to get back to blog writing but that's an old complaint sadly.
That sounds very plausible as the Decada want to mark Cyprus as solely Greek territory and using the Greek god statues as calling cards is one way of doing that. I'm glad you came up with a solution as I was pretty stumped, bar my thoughts above.