The Death I Gave Him, by Em X Liu
I really hate elevator pitches. Blurbs, whatever you want to call them. Books condensed into a sentence or two. This meets That. Always bypassing mood in favour of a hook to grab as many potential readers as possible.
This book is described as ‘Hamlet as a locked-room mystery.’ Which it is - but also SO much more.
The time? The not too-distant future. The place? A scientific research facility called Elsinore, whose goals are generally unclear. A body is found, with vital information hidden and a murderer amongst those who are quarantined within.
Some marks are hit; others are not. Horatio is the charming laboratory AI, connected with protagonist Hayden in very interesting ways. His ex-partner Felicia’s relationship with the men she’s trapped with is particularly fierce, combining her old love, anger and wish for revenge.
There are easter eggs, of course - famous lines reworked for those in the know. The killer ceases to become the point.
I have an English degree and still manage to love the Bard, so I thought I was prepared; yet still found myself responding with ‘Oh no - don’t!’ at a certain (off-screen and so far worse) moment. The varying perspectives somehow give events more power and realism, drawing me in until I couldn’t physically put the book down.
The deepest change for me is the ‘kingdom’ - the goal of the murderer. It’s a healing concoction called Sisyphus, which may or may not confer immortality. This gives whole new meaning to Hayden’s considerations of life and death, while at the same time implying the hell of a man cursed to perpetually roll his punishment up a hill.
This book is phenomenal, not just in the style of writing, but also in working a miracle of originality. I found myself as trapped as those inside the facility, truly wondering what might happen next and where familiar paths diverge. I felt the pain, the dilemmas and the inevitably as they increase, faster and faster until it’s suddenly revealed how short a time has passed - it felt like an eternity.
Ultimately, it’s the story that persists. The characters have their immortality, their struggles told again and again, be it as a poor play or an intense novel. No matter the inspiration, this book deserves to endure, and I wanted to applaud (or cry) when it was done.
A high recommend.