Ecstasy - Debt Collector 3

Ecstasy by Susan Kaye Quinn

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Review: Minor spoilers:
Debt Collection is the draining of life force or energy from someone. Normally government bean counters balance a client's debt to life value ratios and if a person has become ill or too old to ever balance their debt sheet, they get a visit from a debt collector.

In the last 3 "books" we've followed the debt collector "Lirium", and I expect since this series of books is called a "season", each book might be analogous to an episode of a TV series. I expect Lirium is going to be our protagonist throughout this "season". I mention this as I wasn't sure. What is a "season" of books? I should figure that out some day.

This "episode" is called Ecstasy (Debt Collector, #3). Having read it, I'm not sure why it is called Ecstasy. If it's important I suspect I'll eventually figure that out.

It opens with Lirium in the bad part of East Los Angeles carrying the life force he collected from Mrs. Riley. He can't believe a high potential payoff like Mr. Brodsky, the CEO of Brodsky Electronics will be found in an area where the stink of recently expelled vomit from a junkie passed out in the alley fills the air. The address Candy gave him points to an industrial warehouse buried deep in the sticky smog that coats everything at ground level. The building’s not even four stories tall. High potential payoffs like Mr. Brodsky, usually live well above the cancer-inducing air that pools at the impoverished gutter of the city.


Lirium doesn't need a good reason to feel paranoid. He has jitters from the long day. There was Ophelia’s abduction, the draining hit off the mob thug who took her, his nauseating visit with his psych officer, Candy Kane Thornton—settling into his stomach. Mrs. Riley’s life force transfer was riding around inside. The churning feeling from the bonus life energy stolen from the thug exasperated his squeamishness.

After finally finding Mr. Brodsky and getting inside his macabre workplace, the encounter was twilight-zone weird. Mr. Brodsky's eccentricities, babbling, and asking unusual personal questions had Lirium clinging to his raw last nerve to stay professional.

The Brodsky transfer went badly. After starting the transfer, the effects of the recent mercy transfer in addition to everything else, Lirium just kept giving long after he had transferred Mrs. Riley's three weeks. Exhausted and feeling ill, he rushed out of Brodsky's laboratory. Now he could start his search for Ophelia.

Story thoughts:
Collecting is usually energizing, uplifting, and it feels good. The payout or transfer to the high potential person is usually the opposite: draining, weakening, depressing, even though the collector retains a portion of the collected debt which results in a net positive increase in their life force. What I found interesting is where Susan Kaye Quinn went with unauthorized illegal giving to the sick or folks who desperately need a "hit" of some life force.

It seemed logical that any giving away life force, collected or not, would consistently be draining and weakening at minimum, and likely depressing. But giving "mercy hits" — that is giving to the needy, provokes euphoric feelings that are dangerously addictive. Even deadly to the debt collector.

Gone completely sideways…
I find this brilliant from our story pilot, Susan, but then she really is a rocket scientist. In reality, far from the world of fiction, I've learned over and over and over again the joy of giving of myself or of anything I've been blessed with. So this apparent illogical reaction to giving "mercy hits" is an extremely insightful thing Susan has done with this debt collection story idea, or world building "rule". My inner editor or writer is going wild with the possibilities a good author might do with this.

Nearly always I round up ratings with author Susan Kay Quinn. Susan takes ideas that are thought-provoking, if not new, and puts them in stories where characters must deal the possibilities of these story ideas and makes them relevant to "today" whenever "today" happens to be.

Her Mindjack series is remarkable and interesting. Much like this debt collecting idea. They are directly analogous to "today". Today, believing you have any privacy is almost ridiculous unless you are entirely off the grid, living in some shack deep in Alaskan wilderness barely within flying distance of some supply outpost. Mindjack series puts the privacy issue on steroids and serves it to us as fiction, the only way we can openly admit there is no privacy.

This Debt Collection "season", like the Mindjack series is analogous to another hot button topic: socialized medicine. A topic so hot you must wear asbestos gloves to write about it in reality, but it is easily dealt with in fiction where one can take their time and think about the ways things may go right or wrong.

Sorry to go sideways on this review but I thought it worthy to note that every time I pick up something by Susan Kaye Quinn, I can expect that later, perhaps alone, maybe on a walk, I'm going to think about issues rationally — when if I otherwise turned on the average news channel I'd only become upset. No solutions come to problems in the middle of raging emotions.

Back to our story with minor spoilers:
Ophelia is the only other "collector" that Lirium has ever trusted. He is determined to get her back from the Kolek mob. He doesn't follow instructions. Candy told him to go straight home to get some rest. Lirium goes to his forbidden "old" apartment where his swipe card still works. Entering he can still see Ophelia's blood on the floor.

He placed and order with Madam Anastazja before he arrived at his old place. What he has planned is not going to make Madam A, or the girl she sends very happy.

Major Spoilers:

• Will Lirium kill the sex worker he has ordered if she will not help him with Madam Anastazja?
• Was the "Apple Girl" sex worker a set up, asking Lirium to give an illegal hit to someone else instead of to her for her services?
• Did Madam Anastazja set up Ophelia's abduction? Or worse?
• If Holek mob is involved would that suggest that Lirium and Ophelia's psych officer, Candy, may be involved in Ophelia's kidnapping or death? Or even Lirium's mugging?
• Candy says she only wants what is best for collector's Ophelia and Lirium--so why did she fail to alert Lirium his "new" apartment was in the Kolek mob's territory?
• When Lirium was mugged, he drained plenty of life force from one of the muggers. Why did psych officer Candy ignore the obvious excess of life force when she measured Lirium to verify Mrs. Riley's debt collection?
• Why did psych officer Candy order Lirium to immediately go make his payoff to Mr. Brodsky when that is Flitstrom job?
• CEO and eccentric weirdo genius Mr. Brodsky is working on transferring life force from good organs to bad organs within a single person, since this shows up so early in the "season" will it play a role in later episodes?
• Lirium is determined to find out what nefarious thing has happened to Ophelia, his mentor, will he discover her dead or alive?

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