Coe (Bournville, 2023), a leading British satirist, presents a clever whodunit shaped by his trademark razor-sharp wit and skewering social-political commentary. Phyl is back home after graduating university, working at a fast-food job at Heathrow while she figures out her life. When her mum’s Cambridge friend Christopher dies suddenly and mysteriously, Phyl is inspired to write a mystery novel. Coe brilliantly plays with the tropes of the genre while slyly poking fun (“Now, a mediocre writer of such mysteries will invent some unlikely contrivance such as a secret passage”). The stories within the story are told in the manner of cozy mysteries, dark academia, and autofiction with winks and nods aplenty, all of which masterfully advance the plot with misdirection. A section set in 1980s Cambridge features a secret society known as the Shadow Chamber and a pale-skinned, black-haired enchantress named Lavinia Coutts. The contemporary section features an old estate, Wetherby Hall; detective Pru Freeborne (read it as proof reborn); and a metafictional novel, My Innocence.
