Cold Calls by Charles Benoit (review)

Eric took a picture he shouldn’t have and failed to delete it from his phone. Fatima confessed her doubts about her Muslim faith in the margins of a book that was stolen from her locker. Shelly is running from her past, believing herself guilty and forever outcast because of a horrible incident for which she can’t forgive herself. They each receive anonymous calls, giving them instructions to inflict painful humiliation on complete strangers or risk having their secrets exposed; their attempts to carry out their assignments get them sentenced to a sensitivity training for bullies program, where they realize that they are being harassed by the same caller. Pooling their resources, they locate the culprit, but Eric can’t resist going a step too far. While the message here is timely and the mystery compulsively readable, the plot details rely entirely too much on coincidence, convenience, and the withholding of information to be fully satisfying. It’s not clear, for instance, why Fatima is even involved in the training, since she didn’t manage to bully anyone, and the blackmailer’s sense of vengeance seems extreme given the slight she suffered. What is interesting, however, is the portrait of the three protagonists’ vulnerability to blackmail: Eric’s secret is truly despicable by any standards, Fatima’s is only problematic because her cultural heritage does not allow her inquiry, and Shelly’s is entirely a work of her own imagination; all three situations are believable and would lend themselves to productive discussion. Bullying is undeniably a hot topic, and readers interested in possible motivations that lead people to act in ways they ordinarily wouldn’t might find this instructive