by Gareth Rubin
SYNOPSIS
Imagine you’re holding a book in your hands. It’s not just any book though. It’s a tête-bêche novel, beloved of nineteenth-century bookmakers. It’s a book that is two books: two intertwined stories printed back-to-back.
Open the book and the first novella begins. It ends at the middle of the book. Then flip the book over, head to tail, and read the second story in the opposite direction.
Both covers are front covers; and it can be read in either direction, or in both directions at once, alternating chapters, to fully immerse the reader in it.
1880s England. On the bleak island of Ray, off the Essex coast, an idealistic young doctor, Simeon Lee, is called from London to treat his cousin, Parson Oliver Hawes, who is dying. Parson Hawes, who lives in the only house on the island – Turnglass House – believes he is being poisoned. And he points the finger at his sister-in-law, Florence. Florence was declared insane after killing Oliver’s brother in a jealous rage and is now kept in a glass-walled apartment in Oliver’s library. And the secret to how she came to be there is found in Oliver’s tête-bêche journal, where one side tells a very different story from the other.
1930s California. Celebrated author Oliver Tooke, the son of the state governor, is found dead in his writing hut off the coast of the family residence, Turnglass House. His friend Ken Kourian doesn’t believe that Oliver would take his own life. His investigations lead him to the mysterious kidnapping of Oliver’s brother when they were children, and the subsequent secret incarceration of his mother, Florence, in an asylum. But to discover the truth, Ken must decipher clues hidden in Oliver’s final book, a tête-bêche novel – which is about a young doctor called Simeon Lee . . .
REVIEW
What a treat to be able to read a tête-bêche novel. I have never read anything like it and I have to say it was a completely immersive and unique experience. My biggest worry with The Turnglass was whether I should read one side at a time (and in this case which side to read first) or to switch chapter by chapter. In the end I decided to start with the side which takes place in Los Angeles in 1939, read this side completely and then flip the book to start over. I think I made the right choice because this way it felt very different to a normal detective novel. If I had switched back and forth I thought it might have a similar feel to a more typical dual timeline novel. But whichever way you read it, the great thing is that with three options of how to discover the story, it's possible to have three completely different journey's with the same book.
There were some complete gems in this book. The first is that the story used one of my favourite tropes - a book within a book - and it was actually a tête-bêche novel, so if you weren't familiar with the concept before, you certainly will be after reading. Another thing that jumped out at me was the little nod to the Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie. One of the characters in the novel is named Simeon Lee, the same name of the secondary antagonist in Christie's novel Hercule Poirot's Christmas. I just love little references like this and I now completely understand the comparison to Magpie Murders which has similar references to classic crime fiction within the story.
I loved the style of writing. Despite the two sections being set in 1881 and 1939, it felt very contemporary and it was so readable. I got completely swept away by the storyline and even though I personally favoured the part following Ken Kourian in 1939, the whole structure, concept and composition was genius. It was probably the whole atmosphere and glamour of the late 30's film industry that appealed to me, it felt so authentic and put me in mind of The Black Dahlia with it's noir murder mystery. There were plenty of clues and secrets hidden within the story and it was so complex and cleverly executed, I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to put this all together.
I could just go on and on about this brilliant and intriguing novel. It's absolutely stunning and actually the book itself is more like a piece of art. A massive shoutout to the cover designer, this one is going on display rather than being hidden on the shelf! I read a lot of crime fiction so I love anything like this that is different to the norm - two stories and two mysteries, cleverly linked and woven together and the fact that the two sides weirdly mirrored each other in places was yet another inventive addition.
Thanks to Random Things Tours - @RandomTTours, Gareth Rubin @GarethRubin and Simon & Schuster UK - @simonschusterUK for the opportunity to read and review.
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK Genre: Thriller / Historical Thriller / Detective Story
ISBN: 978-1398514492
Pages: 512pp
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