Miranda, Kesiah Keren

Smaller and Smaller Circles

By F. H. Batacan

Smaller and smaller circle is not the typical story that depicts law in literature. There is
neither judge nor trial present, only tracing clues and information to find the killer with
the help of people that are willing to work with the priests. The novel begins with the
discovery of a series of murders around the Palates dumpsite of Quezon City. These
discoveries imply that a serial killer is on the loose, and many are lead to believe so.
What is unusual about these murder cases is that all of the victims (young boys) are
mutilated instead of just being killed. Their faces are neatly peeled off from their skulls
and their hearts and genitals removed from their bodies.
Father Emil, the parish priest of the area who discovers one of the victim's bodies at the
beginning of the first chapter, provides these details to Jesuit priests Gus Saenz and
Jerome Lucero. A forensic pathologist and a clinical psychologist respectively. The two
scientists are working on this case together with the NBI, whose inefficiently becomes
one of the major themes of the novel. As the priests proceed with the investigation,
they are forced to overcome several challenges, particularly skepticism and mocking of
atty. Ben Arcinas, the head of NBI's investigating team. Figuring out the plans and
intentions of a psychologically disturbed killer, especially is he's very good at concealing
it, is fairly difficult. The partners also work with Joanna Bonifacio, an investigative
journalist who’s uses her skill to gather information from the bureaucracy. The two
priests pursued the investigations of the crimes, confirming all the evidences left by the
killer on the corpses especially the fact that he kills with precision and with symbols: he
defaces his victim’s, and excises the genitals.
The investigators get a chance to visit the Payatas area and suspect that the killer is one
of the people involved in the kid's health care. They soon learn about a mobile dental
clinic that offers free dental services to poor kids in the area, and the priests investigate
the clinic for dental records of the victims. In the last, and perhaps most important
scene of the novel, the murderer is shown to be hiding in the mobile clinic after killing
the last victim. The two Jesuit priests are the ones who begin the approach, and after
much struggling, the suspect meets his final demise. Alex Carlos is shot by the NBI
troops situated outside the van. The novel ends with the two main characters visiting
the dentist's grave. The younger priest Father Lucero is shown thinking deeply about
Carlos' last words and feels sorry, knowing that the latter did not intend to live the life
he lived.