The Meaning of Night
“After killing the red-haired man, I took myself off to Quinn’s for an oyster supper.”
So begins an extraordinary story of betrayal and treachery, of delusion and deceit narrated by Edward Glyver. Glyver may be a bibliophile, but he is no bookworm. Employed “in a private capacity” by one of Victorian London’s top lawyers, he knows his Macrobius from his First Folio, but he has the street-smarts and ruthlessness of a Philip Marlowe. And just as it is with many a contemporary detective, one can’t always be sure whether Glyver is acting on the side of right or wrong.
As the novel begins, Glyver silently stabs a stranger from behind, killing him apparently at random. But though he has committed a…