The Good Death
by Nick Brooks
Phoenix, HK$116
The Good Death is morbid in many ways: it centres on a mortician who cherishes his 'sleeping beauties'; deals with death and murder; and inspires disgust. The protagonist is Madden, the sort of person who had 'leather elbow patches sewn into the tweed lining of his elderly soul'. We meet him during his hair-thinned 60s and see how the unexpected arrival of an old professor on his slab stimulates memories of why he started spending time with the dead during his student days. Not surprisingly, for someone who describes the insides of a 10-year-old female corpse as 'fresh, firm and slippery', he has grim reminders of sex, the futility of which was 'too shaming for words'. A murder mystery of sorts, the novel exhumes the past and has the killer confronting right and wrong rather than the law. All of which might sound like author Nick Brooks has chosen the right tools for a thriller. But although the utensils are at his disposal they've been laid out in a confused manner. Which is to say that the narrative meanders. Brooks acknowledges Sherwin Nuland's How We Die as the inspiration for his novel's title.
Readers interested in the topic of death would find Nuland's book a more rewarding read.
