Guilty by Definition by Suzie Dent

400 pages

Publisher: Bonnier UK / Zaffre

Release date: August 16, 2024

 

Blurb

The debut murder mystery from the resident genius of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, Susie Dent.

An anonymous letter arrives at the offices of the Clarendon English Dictionary containing a challenge for the team of lexicographers working there. It's clear that's it's not the usual run-of-the-mill, eccentric enquiry. The letter hints at secrets, lies and a year. 2010. For Martha Thornhill, the new senior editor, that year can mean only one the summer her brilliant, beautiful older sister Charlie went missing.

After a decade living abroad, Martha has returned to her father, her family home and the city whose institutions have defined her family, but the ghosts she thought at rest were only waiting for her to return.

More letters arrive, pointing towards a secret in the heart of the dictionary itself. As Martha and her colleagues start pulling apart the clues, the questions become more insistent and troubling. Charlie's disappearance is one of a series of secret absences going back centuries, and someone wants to keep those secrets buried.

 

Review

 “Lexicographers sought out the thrill of the chase as much as detectives did.”

Ten years ago, Martha Thornhill’s sister Charlie disappeared, and Martha fled Oxford for Berlin. Now Martha has returned to Oxford where she is the senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary. When she and her staff start receiving cryptic postcards and letters, it soon becomes clear that the clues refer to the summer Charlie disappeared. As Martha and her team unravel the linguistic riddles they realise that while Chorus, the mysterious sender of the letters and cards, wants them to solve the mystery of Charlie’s disappearance there are other forces who will do anything to keep the secrets buried.

This book captivated me from start to finish and will almost certainly end up in my top ten for 2024. The mystery is intriguing, clever, and meticulously plotted. The characters are vivid, interesting, multi-faceted, and real. And the writing is smooth and easy flowing, pulling the reader deep into the story. The clues contained in the mail the editorial team received are all somehow related to words, reading, and writing, and invite the reader of the book to puzzle along with the characters.

It made a nice change to have a police officer, Oliver Caldwell, who does take the case seriously; more seriously in fact than Martha is initially prepared to do and it is her sister who has disappeared without a trace. But this is as much a story about Martha reluctantly coming to terms with Charlie’s role in her life and her feeling that’s she has always played second fiddle to her sister as a tale about Charlie’s unsolved disappearance.

This book is an absolute delight for anyone who enjoys words, puzzles, and a captivating mystery. Susie Dent manages to insert (obscure) words and their meaning into the mystery seamlessly and without interrupting the flow or taking the reader out of the story. In other words:

“It was excellent: scholarly and precise without overloading the reader with jargon.”

And the words that are explained both in the chapter headings and in the story itself are all appropriate to what is happening on the page.

“But she loved words as individuals. She knew their roots, their rhythms, their skeletons, shapes and stories. Fitting them together to create something meaningful took a different skill altogether.”

This book is proof that Susie Dent doesn’t share this word-related problem with her main character. Unlike Martha, she has very successfully put words together to create something not only meaningful but also smoothly flowing and captivating.

Long review short: Guilty by Definition is a fascinating, original, and well-plotted mystery as well as an ode to words. I can only hope there will be more word-related mysteries by this author in the not-too-distant future.