Death in the Spires, by K.J. Charles

After I learned, via the author’s newsletter, about this book, I stalked NetGalley, ready to pounce, on the off chance I could get an ARC. And then, I did!

Beware: racism, ableism, classism, homophobia/queerphobia, all of the time; rape; loss of a child.

Death in the Spires, by K.J. Charles

In every reader’s life, there’s at least one author one will follow almost without question. If one is very lucky, there will be more than one. K.J. Charles is one such author for me. (see footnote ¹)

The novel is narrated in third person, past tense, from the deep point of view of one Jeremy Kite, formerly a bright star at Oxford, and now literally a nobody who wants to remain a nobody. But of course, there is always someone unwilling to let scandals die, and there are always those who will gleefully join in mudracking of the basest sort.

As Jeremy is forced to remember the unsolved murder of one of his closest university friends, and to confront the certainty that the murderer must have been one of their small circle, the reader follows him through a maze of memories and feelings, the story is effectively told in two timelines: Jem’s 1905 present, and his early-1890s past.

The publisher’s blurb sets the story up thus:

The newspapers called us the Seven Wonders. We were a group of friends, that’s all, and then Toby died. Was killed. Murdered.

1905. A decade after the grisly murder of Oxford student Toby Feynsham, the case remains hauntingly unsolved. For Jeremy Kite, the crime not only stole his best friend, it destroyed his whole life. When an anonymous letter lands on his desk, accusing him of having killed Toby, Jem becomes obsessed with finally uncovering the truth.

Jem begins to track down the people who were there the night Toby died – a close circle of friends once known as the ‘Seven Wonders’ for their charm and talent – only to find them as tormented and broken as himself. All of them knew and loved Toby at Oxford. Could one of them really be his killer?

As Jem grows closer to uncovering what happened that night, his pursuer grows bolder, making increasingly terrifying attempts to silence him for good. Will exposing Toby’s killer put to rest the shadows that have darkened Jem’s life for so long? Or will the gruesome truth only put him in more danger?

Some secrets are better left buried…

Jeremy Kite is an outsider at Oxford, in every possible way. Not only is he “the scholarship boy”, thereby lacking the connections, class and privilege of the vast majority of the student body, but he’s also poor, very small in stature, and has a clubfoot. He also has the brains and the determination to make more of himself than what his cirumstances dictate; though merit and grit, he has secured his place at the oldest, most prestigious university in the empire, and that will be the making of his future.

He expects insults at best and abuse at worst, while hoping for indifference, as ostracism would at least allow him peace to work. When instead he is immediatelt drawn into Toby Feynsham’s inner circle, his entire world opens up; Jem is no longer the crippled charity case, and therefore an obvious target, but a close personal friend of Toby, the golden boy who everyone else admires; Toby, who’s in line to inherit a maquisate and its attendant fortune.

For three years, Jem’s life exceeds even his wildest imaginings. He has not only managed to excel at Oxford, with a bright professional future just a few short weeks away; he’s not only one of the Seven Wonders and a sought-after member of various clubs; he also has made the best friends a man could ever want.

And then, Toby is murdered, and Jem’s entire world collapses; his future is gone, and his friends become hostile strangers. For ten years, as the crime remains unsolved, Jem exists in limbo; his dreams out of reach, his future gone.

When a letter arrives, once again destroying the insignificant measure of safety Jem has managed to build for himself, he’s finally had enough.

But of course, one cannot go kicking over hornets nests and not expect to be stung.

Ms Charles took pains to make it very clear to her readers that this is not genre romance, but a murder mystery; however, the identity of the killer can only be ascertained by studying the relationships and feelings (revealed or not, requited or not) between this once-tight group of friends.

And so, as Jeremy revisits his past, by interviewing his erstwhile friends on by one, and as he remembers those golden years a decade prior, the reader comes to see each of these seven bright young persons as complex people, and their apparently easy friendships as tangled ties that both bind and stiffle.

And the pining, goodness gracious me, the pining is off the charts.

“Nicky watched Toby, and Jem knew it because Jem watched Nicky. …he watched Nicky all the same, and Nicky watched Toby, just as hopelessly. …as Aaron watched Ella–with a longing that was entirely permissible if it was understood to be impossible.” (Chapter 5)

“Jem had never believed he could supplant Toby in Nicky’s affections, so he didn’t let himself think thoughts to which he wasn’t entitled.” (Chapter 9)

Bit by bit, memory by memory, Jem deconstructs his original interpretation of events, and realizes how much had been hidden from his understanding, and how his perceptions of the people around him had been colored by his feelings for them. He had been young, sheltered, and an outsider, ignorant of the many subtler rules of the society in which he now moved. A decade later, with the eyes of a man past thirty, he sees and understands many more of the undercurrents swirling behind the relationships between the group of former friends, now all strangers far removed from those heady golden days.

“He was frightened, and, once he recognized that, he realized he’d been frightened for a very long time, at a level so deep he hadn’t known it. One of the people he most loved had become a murderer, and he’d never trusted anyone again.” (Chapter 11)

The structure of the novel is brilliant; as Jem remembers the past and doggedly looks into the present, everything is laid out for the reader to put together. And then, the climax, the twist, and the almost painful hope of the denouement.

I inhaled this book–who needs sleep?–; the ending is absolutely perfect; the characterizations are so rounded, the plotting so tight, it’s glorious, just glorious.

And because past is invariably prologue–given humanity seems incapable of learning–several of the themes and issues the characters deal with are as timely today as they were at the dawn of the Twentieth Century.

Death in the Spires gets a 9.50 out of 10.

This book will be released on April 11, 2024.

* * * *

¹ “Almost” only because I don’t do horror; horror-adjacent is a far as I get, and even that with trepidation.