Character Is Destiny

THE FURY by Alex Michaelides (Celadon Books; 320 pages; ₹2,499)

The bestselling author of The Silent Patient is back with his third book. Seven people are trapped on a Greek island during a storm; one of them is a murderer. A famous, now retired movie star Lana Farrar takes her new husband Jason Miller, her teenage son Leo, her best friend the theatre actress Kate Crosby, and her close friend Eliot Chase, the narrator to spend Easter weekend in Aura, the island gifted to her by her late husband. Trapped overnight by the furious winds, old friendships turn out to conceal hatred and a desire for revenge. As the tension dials up, secrets spill out, the vio­lence escalates, and then—the murder.

Divided into five Acts, the story is narrated by Eliot, a play­wright, who warns us on the first page that if he misleads us, it is by accident, not design, “an occupational hazard, perhaps, when one narrates a story in which one happens to play a minor role”. He tells us that at its heart, the story is the saddest kind of love story—“about the end of love; the death of love”. So, it is. It is hard to summarise any more of the story without giving away spoilers.

Like in The Silent Patient, the author delves into the psychol­ogy of the characters. Character is destiny, the narrator quotes Heraclitus in the epigraph. The Fury is a whydunnit, the narrator tells us— a character study, an examination of who we are and why we do the things we do and what determines who we are. This question: which comes first— character or fate—threads through the entire story. We learn more about Eliot’s traumatic childhood and his relationship with an older writer, and the complex friendships of Eliot and Kate sepa­rately with Lana. As the twists are revealed, more complex layers unfold about each character’s goals. The traumas in their pasts, though, are handled with a light touch, and the twists peppered throughout make for a pleasant and pacy page turner.

The Fury also explores the crime fiction genre, the trend these days in the current crop of crime novels. The narrator often steps back, and after highlighting the genre’s conventions, warns us readers that his story is about real life, not a work of fiction.

Plot nods to Knives Out, Glass Onion and several Agatha Christies, including Endless Night, Evil Under the Sun, And Then There were None. Not surprising given that the author is an avowed Christie fan. In an interview, Michaelides said that he relied on the narrator of Ford Madox Ford’s The Good Soldier for Eliot’s tone.

The Fury is a well-constructed and enjoyable whydunnit, narrated with ease and a light touch, and is bound to appeal to the fans of Golden Age murders.

EVERYONE ON THIS TRAIN IS A SUSPECT by Benjamin Stevenson (Michael Joseph; 368 pages; ₹799)

Following on the heels of Everyone in My Family has Killed Someone, Australian comedian Benjamin Stevenson now tips a hat to Agatha Christie. What happens when you mix Murder on the Orient Express with a train full of crime writers holding a grudge? Murder can’t be far behind, can it?

Ernest Cunningham, now a bestselling non-fiction debut author, is part of a crime writers’ festival on The Ghan, a train that goes from Darwin to Adelaide with halts along the way, and the Australian Mystery Writers’ Literary festival staged by the tracks. What better setting for a locked-room mys­tery could there be than a train through the Australian desert?

Ernest is determined to write his next book on the train, crime fiction this time, but finds himself stymied by the dreaded writer’s block. It doesn’t help that his fellow panelists are of the Hobbesian nasty and brutish variety, or that one of them has already given him a one-star review on Goodreads. All this triggers Ernest’s anxiety and his imposter syndrome. It doesn’t help that his agent is on board for another client, and is harassing him to finish the sequel. Then one of the authors is murdered, and all of them, including Ernest, are suspects. Their specialties make them prime suspects since they include forensic science, blockbuster thrillers, legal thrillers, literary fiction, and psychological suspense. At first, Ernest is thrilled with this real-life plot for his novel, but quickly realises that if he doesn’t unmask the real killer, he might be telling the story from prison.

Narrated in first person, Ernest tells us he will follow SS Van Dine’s commandments issued to Golden Age detective fiction writers (no supernatural solution etc) and reassures the reader that he will be a reliable narrator.

Stevenson brings a modern meta-pastiche spin to this homage to Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, its locked-room puzzle, and the conventions of Golden Age detective fiction. The narrator tells us the murderer’s name will be mentioned 106 times going forward, that there will be clever clues, many twists, and startling reveals. Along the way, Stevenson expounds on the conventions of crime fiction, which becomes a bit repetitive and tedious for those who have read other such meta-pastiches. But for readers who haven’t, this is a gleeful and humorous glimpse into the world of today’s crime fiction authors, complete with para­noid fellow authors, sharky literary agents and publishers, plagiarism accusations, literary festivals, rabid fans, and genre norms at play.

FIRST LIE WINS by Ashley Elston (Headline; 384 pages; ₹699)

A refreshing spin on domestic noir with a dash of Mr and Mrs Smith sums up this debut thriller by Elston, a YA author. And what a page-turner it is. Evie Porter is not what she seems—a recently arrived pretty woman who has just moved into her doting boyfriend’s mansion in a small town where everyone knows your worst qualities and still accepts you. Evie is an outsider with secrets. Firstly, she isn’t Evie. Secondly, the boyfriend, Ryan, is the mark. Thirdly, her job, revealed to her in stages by a mysterious Mr Smith, is to spy on Ryan and his business. But when she meets a woman at a party who introduces herself as Lucca Marino from Eden, North Carolina, Evie is shocked. The woman who resembles her has stolen Evie’s identity, the one she has always kept clean and the one identity she could always go back to. What will Evie do? Who has sent this woman? Can she remain one step ahead of the mysterious Mr Smith who is out to fix her?

All the elements here work: a main character who is a con woman, her identity theft, a mysterious Mr Smith, a man with whom she is beginning to fall in love, how her previous cons impact this one, good twists, and a satisfying conclusion. There are several suspenseful questions at play here: who is the mys­terious Mr Smith? Who is watching her? Why is Evie being targeted? Can she outwit them?

Evie is a ‘take charge’ heroine who refuses to be a victim, who may have built her own team, and who surprises us repeatedly with her ability to wriggle out of her adversary’s traps. Her vulnerability comes through, in her dreams of having a future with Ryan and giving up her con existence, which complicates matters and increases her stakes. But early on, we know that Ryan is not what he seems either. Each twist amps up the intrigue. The novel’s structure brings us Evie’s past cons that neatly inform her present predicament and give her the tools to outwit Mr Smith. Crisp dialogue and confident pace round out a stellar thriller delivered with panache.

Alex MichaelidesAshley ElstonBenjamin Stevensonbookscrimefiction