a book all filipinos should read at least once in their lifetime.

the story starts strong with a harrowingly grotesque prologue, and moves forward following a priest-detective hybrid tandem as they uncover a bleak and anger-inducing mystery: the monthly murders of young boys by a payatas serial killer.

i thought characterization was great. priests saenz and jerome theorizing the murderer’s methods and motives was always a page-turner, and i enjoyed their symbolic parent/mentor and child/mentee dynamics. ben arcinas was so successfully infuriating that i genuinely wished for him to rot in hell (i was pleasantly surprised by his redemption arc albeit i thought it a bit too swift). there is this one chapter — by far the most impactful and most demoralizing — where the victims' mothers were informed of their sons' murder , that on its own, i would've rated six stars. overall, i never would’ve thought a book following the investigations of two scholarly priests would be this interesting.

critique-wise, i will say that the first third of the novel contains quite clunky exposition but i found that smaller and smaller circles gets warmer and more insightful as you read progressively. things start to get seriously unsettling about 75% in the book so be forewarned. unfortunately, the weakest component of this story is its conclusion: it was too abrupt (though, perhaps that was deliberate on batacan's end, so that she could demonstrate how misfortunes never wrap up with satisfaction). on a similar note, i am fervent in wishing that alex should've gotten a less depressing, less unjust ending. but i guess that's the point of this novel: to illustrate how unfair life can be.

to future readers, don't start this with expectations of mindboggling mystery. i've found its qualities are more appreciated if received less for the criminal investigation unfurling, and more for its (realistic) reflections of filipino cultural faults. it remarkably unveils insight into the utter incompetence of philippine law enforcement, goddamn corruption, expediency, and complete absence of due process. as i read through the chapters, i thought that smaller and smaller circles might as well be a work of non-fiction.

such important thematic coverage of injustice. quite the heavy book and quite the wake up call. it left me angry. irate, even... more dreadfully, this book is a meaningfully imposing narrative of victims of abuse who consequently inflict abuse too... of a child so badly harmed that he grew up broken, driven to harm others in turn. the sad reality of victims of evil, and of how they wrongfully mistreated and forsaken.

The author mentioned that she wrote this book feeling angry at the justice system and corruptness present in all Philippine bureaucratic and civil systems. I can feel it, and I can understand it.

What's worse is that though this book was written in the 90s, edited in 2013, and I've read it in 2022, this could have very well been a contemporary novel still set in my current time, or perhaps even in my grandchildren's time. It is the first time I've seen priests being involved investigators in crime novels instead of just witnesses.

Every single character in this book is dealing with decades of moral muck and personal issues and I don't have any poetic words for it. This is a situation that happens every day and I'm too familiar with the helpless, bleak feeling of the Philippines' extrajudicial system to even be surprised at it.

Very honest portrait.

The book had engaging characters, and featured several well-written side plots. The political subtext is unrelenting and executed justly.