Jon Morgan is a retired police Superintendent and francophile who, it is said, has consequently seen almost everything awful that people can do to each other. He relishes quality writing in all genres but advises particularly on police procedure for authors including John Harvey and Jon McGregor. Haunts bookshops both new and secondhand and stands with Erasmus: “When I have a little money, I buy books; and if I have any left, I may buy food and clothes.”
The Cunningham family. More skeletons than your average teaching hospital. Three brothers - Jeremy, apparently dead, as a child; Michael, getting out of an Australian prison after a very short three year stretch for murder and Ernest whose testimony put Michael away, and who also narrates the novel, describing himself as ‘both Watson and the Detective.’
The Matriarch, Audrey, married to Marcelo, the deceased father’s friend and lawyer. The deceased father is dead, shot by police, after he himself has allegedly shot a police officer in the course of a robbery.
The step-sister, Sofia. A capable surgeon, suspended after a death on the operating table. The daughters–in–law. Erin, the estranged wife of Ernest, who was having an affair with Michael and Lucy, Michael’s ex-wife.
All are gathered at a rather run down Australian ski resort with the obligatory storm trapping them, little internet connection, and waiting for Michael to arrive on his release from prison. Then the body count starts rising. Ernest (A nod to Wilde?)
So far, so normal, although the novel is structured having overt regard to Ronald Knox’s ‘Ten Commandments’ of detective fiction, promulgated in 1929 for the guidance of ‘The Detection Club.’
The narrative proceeds apace with frequent nods to the rules, winks from the semi-omniscient narrator; sometimes clarifying; sometimes justifying; sometimes self-deprecating with appeals to the reader for their understanding and patience.
There are many of the tropes of the golden age of crime fiction – locked (and unlocked doors), too many footprints in the snow, corrupt and incompetent police, the above-mentioned storms, microdot photographs, destruction of evidence by weather and conflagration etc. There are self-admitted holes in the plot – one is big enough to drive a truck through.
The novel is very cleverly structured and despite over-clear hints and pointers, with the occasional titbits of disinformation, the solution is never quite what is expected, much like the title of the book, technically true, as things turn out, but not actually terribly accurate either.
The cleverness – being given the page numbers of deaths / killings / murders on page 2 – occasionally over-reaches itself in terms of clichés and plot devices and does get irksome, but there is quality enough in the structure and the writing that makes the reader want to persevere to a denouement that is actually rather satisfying.
I liked the style, wit and structure whilst struggling occasionally with the authorial and narrative asides. In the end a really good read with enough originality to keep the reader on his / her / their toes.
