The Book of Murder

The Book of Murder

by Guillermo Mart?nez

Abacus, HK$114

Guillermo Mart?nez made a splash with The Oxford Murders, a clever story that's either a literary novel with aspirations to be a thriller, or a thriller with aspirations to be a literary novel. Now a film starring Elijah Wood, it looks set to shunt Mart?nez towards the mainstream. The Book of Murder will do nothing to hurt his growing reputation. Owing a considerable debt to Borges' brilliant short story Death and the Compass, The Book of Murder is a book about murder that knows it's a book about murder. For one thing, our narrator is a writer. Ten years before the main action, he hurts his wrist and hires a young woman (the Kafkaesque Luciana B) to transcribe his latest manuscript. He learns that Luciana has also worked for Kloster, a 'merciless' but 'dazzling' literary rival. A decade on, Luciana reappears with a problem: someone is killing her friends and family and she believes Kloster is the culprit. He tells a different story. Mart?nez exploits this structure to good effect: interpretation and the prejudices that distort it is central to his plot. Low on action but high on IQ, The Book of Murder is worth a stab.