Book Review – The Crime Of Julian Wells

by Thomas H. Cook (Head of Zeus) ISBN 9 78 1908 800 152

Only readers who know Thomas Cooks’ writing will enjoy this kind of story. It is mysterious, dark, very beautiful prose. As Julian steps into the dinghy in the pond he lets it drift far from inquisitive eyes. He slits each wrist letting his hands hang over the sides of the boat as life drains away in dark red blood from his body.

He has been a famous true crime writer and his friends cannot explain his suicide. They follow a trail of places where he wrote each book, searching for clues to his death. His agent thinks he may have been in love with the innocent Marisol who is missing. ‘There is no such thing as love,’ says the agent, ‘only a lack of perspective’.  Did the author’s ‘games’ that he played cause Marisol’s ghastly death?

A cruel death camp leads to a body, a sneering, laughing slaughterer who says she deserved what she got. It all ends with a huge question with no answers.