Great read for those who enjoy a good puzzle
WEST HEART KILL Dann McDorman
Raven books BY CUSHLA McKINNEY
When you pick up a murder mystery there are certain expectations: a detective (professional or amateur depending on circumstance), a crime, suspects, clues, and at least one plot twist before the denouement. Indeed, isn’t it one of the pleasures of genre fiction that it follows a familiar formula? One that, if the writer is honourable, offers the reader a sporting chance to beat the investigator to the punch?
In West Heart Kill, Dann McDorman not only plays by the rules, he shows the reader how the trick works in realtime. At one level, the novel follows the accepted formula, including a death at the height of a storm that isolates the characters from the outside world, and a plot twist that turns the story on its head. The main protagonist is a downatheel private detective called Adam McAnnis, who has arranged — for reasons best known to himself — to be invited to a party on a private island owned by the West Heart Club. Also present are various members of the founding families, whose histories, relationships, and illicit interactions provide a variety of motives and opportunities for conflict. And once introduced, McAnnis must, like Chekov’s gun, be deployed, the questions of who has hired him and why are as much a part of the mystery as the inevitable death.
Where McDorman parts with convention is in his relationship with his audience. The perspective not only veers from first to third person, the author repeatedly breaks the fourth wall to flatter our perspicacity and direct our thoughts on characters or events. The ‘‘you’’ at times is addressed to the reader as reader, at others to the reader as cast member (are we not, in the very act of reading, ourselves participants?), a bid both to involve us in and distract us from his prestidigitation.
The form, too, is fluid, with the grand reveal taking the form not of a novel but a play, and the narrative is interspersed with diversions into the genre's history and conventions.
The result is a little like being a guest at a murdermystery party: great fun to play if you are in the mood, but a little disconcerting if you stumble across it unawares.
Although not quite as original as the publicity might suggest, it is cleverly done and a great read for those who enjoy a good puzzle. If you prefer things tied up in a neat bow at the end or find such authorial gameplaying frustratingly pretentious, you might want to look elsewhere. You have been warned.
Cushla McKinney is a Dunedin scientist.