Book #26 for 2022: Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott - Book Bingo: E
Every Contact Leaves a Trace by Elanor Dymott
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Alex and his wife Rachel met while studying at Oxford University's Worcester College; everything seems to be going well for them, until suddenly Rachel is brutally murdered. When Alex, also the book's narrator, starts attempting to figure out who might have done the deed, he realises that there is a lot about his late wife that he didn't know.
Reading this book, I found myself at times reminded of the writings of Edgar Allen Poe, particularly "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", but I had mixed feelings about this.
First off, quite a lot of this book is told in flashback, and it includes narratives within the story that explain the events that led up to the murder. There are several moments in the book where Alex started reminiscing about his times with Rachel. On the positive side, this really helped me to find out more about her, and about their relationship, but I also found that I had to read the book very carefully, as at times the narrative would jump between the present and flashbacks so rapidly, I found myself having to go back and re-read the last few pages.
A few other things irked me, including some very long paragraphs, and the fact that Alex's narrative would often switch between the present and past tenses repeatedly, and for no apparent reason. The sections where a professor from the college gives information to Harry about his understanding of Rachel, and the possible motives for murder, could have been written better, as they were also narrated by Alex, but in the third person, so the dialogue would feel a bit clunky; a typical sentence would often be something like: "He told me he saw this happen", and when there were long chapters written like this, it wasn't always easy on my brain.
This wasn't a particularly easy to read book either, because it felt a bit too long-winded at times, with lengthy sentences that set out Alex's thoughts.
On to the positives; there were some interesting characters, and the whole idea of Alex not knowing the first thing about his own wife was intriguing. I was excited to find out who did the deed, but the ending was not quite what I expected. It was the sort of denouement that I had to think about for a while, but in the end I agreed that it did at least break one of the usual cliches regarding mystery fiction, and it felt like a brave move by the author.
Overall, this book was okay, but not brilliant; it felt like a book that needed to be read carefully, and free of distractions.
View all my reviews
This gets me my second "bingo" for the 2022 ljbookbingo challenge.
Agatha Raisin and the Fairies of Fryfam (M.C. Beaton)
Big Panda and Tiny Dragon (James Norbury)
Crawling Horror (Edited by Daisy Butcher and Janette Leaf)
Desperation (Stephen King)
Every Contact Leaves a Trace (Elanor Dymott)
Facebook: The Inside Story (Steven Levy)
G
House with No Doors (Jeff Noon)
I
J
K
L
Mindset (Dr. Carol S. Dweck)
N
O
P
Q
Round the World in Eighty Days (Jules Verne)
Survivors (Marcus Blakeston & Mark Astronaut)
The Truth is Out There (Thomas Bertonneau and Kim Paffenroth)
U
V
Wyntertide (Andrew Caldecott)
X
Y
Z