With the killer known, mystery story becomes a ‘whydunit’

In a departure from our classic mystery series, the Monday Book Club will read for its May selection “The Light of Day,” a contemporary offering by Graham Swift, winner of the Booker Prize for “Last Orders.”

The subject matter is a change as well.
This novel is not concerned with who committed the crime but is rather a psychological investigation of what happens in a murder’s aftermath.

George Webb was dismissed from his post of detective inspector of the London police for improper conduct during an investigation of a crime eight years before the time of the novel. George is now a private detective whose practice concentrates mostly on “matrimonial matters.”

Sarah Nash, an academic lecturer and translator, seeks George’s help because her husband Bob has been having an affair with a former student of hers, Kristina Lazic.

Swift

Kristina is Croatian. While she has been studying in England, the war broke out in her country. Her parents and her brother were killed in the violence.
Sarah has befriended Kristina by taking her into her home, not realizing that she would cause the ruin of her own life by this selfless act of charity. Bob has agreed to break off the affair since Kristina is returning to Croatia now that the war is over.

Sarah hires George to observe the interaction between Bob and Kristina at the airport. She is not sure whether Bob will be coming back home or getting on the plane with Kristina.

He does come home, but Sarah kills him 10 minutes after he arrives back.
The novel is an exploration not only of murder, its motivations and fatalism, but also of a kind of love that operates the same way. The novel takes the position that in both love and murder “something comes over” a person and the result is inevitable.

The aftermath of the moment of both love and murder carries over into the future and cannot be forgotten, forgiven or dismissed in order to “move on with your life.”

Along the way of the narrative of these personal stories, Swift manages to include a meditation on how history intertwines with the present.

Sarah Nash is translating a book about Eugenie, wife of French Emperor Napoleon III who lived in exile in England beginning in 1871. Eugenie lived on for 50 years as a refugee in England after Napoleon died.

As it happens, Napoleon’s estate in the village of Chislehurst became the golf course on which George Webb’s father played. It is one day when George caddies for his father that he sees the “light of day” about his own father’s extramarital affair.

Swift’s novel uses the technique of following threads of ideas through chapters that move back and forth through the individual stories and through time, at least in the mind of George Webb.

The reader is led to consider the similarity of the two refugee stories, to compare the inevitability of the murder and of George’s love for Sarah, and based on these considerations to reflect on some ethical decisions.

Swift seems to want us to think about faithfulness, blame, redemption and keeping secrets about things that are hurtful to others.

We see not only the murder, but all the connected stories through George’s eyes and are encouraged to take his point of view.

The question is, “Will the reader agree with any of George’s assumptions?”
That question and others will be discussed at 6 p.m. May 21 at Taylor Books on Capitol Street.

Carol Campbell leads the discussion groups for the Monday Book Club and for Kanawha Public Library.