The Meaning of Night by Michael Cox

With echoes of Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, Cox has created a very intricate thriller which some reviewers have dubbed a “Victorian Noir.” The story, written as a “confession” but a narrator who is not always trustworthy, opens with the narrator (Edward Glyver) murdering a complete stranger in cold blood simply “to practice” for his true target – a gentleman named Phoebus Daunt. Glyver and Daunt have been acquainted for years, and Glyver is convinced that Daunt has set out to make his (Glyver’s) life miserable, to the extent of framing him for a theft, having him expelled from school, stealing his fiancée, and taking his birthright and inheritance to an estate and title of the gentry. I would argue that this book is a psychological thriller, as it starts with such a horrific event (the murder), and then flashes back to Glyver’s childhood, and works its way up to that murder Glyver committed. It made the reader wonder what on Earth could have happened in this man’s past to make his mind so twisted and his focus so narrow. That Glyver will attain his goal and enact his revenge on Daunt is not surprising, but the events that follow that second murder are what really kept my interest. Throughout this (at times) long-winded book, I will not deny that a frequent thought was, “Oh, just kill him already!”

The research Cox completed for this complex novel is to be commended, but much of the every day descriptions and other small plotlines that were stretched throughout the book seemed not to aid the protagonist in his ultimate goal of revenge. And when he finally achieves his revenge and has his crow of triumph, the reader isn’t entirely certain that he deserves it. You see, Edward Glyver is just as much of a mystery as is the plot he tries to unravel – the plot that ultimately leads him to blame Daunt for everything. From the opening sentence, “After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn's for an oyster supper,” one is decidedly unsettled. However, I believe that is the author’s intentions.

If you enjoyed this book, please consider the following :
Fiction Recommendation : Montmorency : Thief, Liar, Gentleman? by Eleanor Updale. Updale’s protagonist, Montmorency, is remarkably similar to Edward Glyver, as is his plot of revenge. However, Updale’s book is more concise and leaves the reader more emotionally satisfied. This is the first in a small series of novels surrounding Mr. Montmorency.
Fiction Recommendation : The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld. The search for a serial killer during Sigmund Freud's 1909 visit to New York City, his one trip to the U.S., propels the plot of Yale law professor Rubenfeld's ambitious debut. Readers will learn much about Freud's relationship with his then-disciple Carl Jung, the building of the Manhattan Bridge, the early opponents to Freud's theories and the central problem posed by Hamlet's "to be or not to be" soliloquy.
Nonfiction Recommendation : Thunderstruck by Erik Larson. Larson's page-turner juxtaposes scientific intrigue with a notorious murder in London at the turn of the 20th century. It alternates the story of Marconi's quest for the first wireless transatlantic communication amid scientific jealousies and controversies with the tale of a mild-mannered murderer caught as a result of the invention.