2019/09: Jonathan Dark, or the Evidence of Ghosts -- A. K. Benedict

'London is ghost-locked,' Frank says. 'Every corner, alleyway, highway, high-rise, gym, café, canal, library or house is haunted in some way. Every window has a ghost looking out. Part of you sees, and it is this part which is screaming at all times inside... Cities are difficult when you're in denial of ghosts. It is an unconscious stress to the body and mind. London is at once an old city heaving with history's spirits and a powerful, steely centre that attracts the young and driven. Its inhabitants breathe in ghost motes every day. Some thrive ...' [loc. 168]

Maria King is mudlarking when she receives an unpleasant and unwanted proposal of marriage. Due to the nature of the proposal, the police are called, and Maria is informed that she may be the latest victim of a serial stalker who has killed at least one other woman. Her peril is magnified by the fact that she wears a blindfold at all times: blind from birth, she recently had an operation to restore her sight, but is unwilling to be disappointed by the world.

DI Jonathan Dark is assigned to her case. He's still haunted by his failure to prevent the death of the stalker's previous victim (who, uncomfortably, shares my first name and last initial). Dark is in the middle of a messy separation which he doesn't want: meanwhile, he's living in a Spitalfields cottage belonging to his cousin, who's scornful of the builders who say it's haunted.

Meanwhile, Finnegan Finch is in despair. He's worried about the safety of his wife Rosa. Frank McNally, a thoughtful and compassionate undertaker, has to break some bad news to Frank: he last saw Rosa at a funeral, and it was the funeral of ...

The dead and the living walk the streets of London in this crime novel, which is exceptional for its characters and its supernatural elements rather than the humdrum (and all too common) plot of a murderer preying on young women. This murderer has a sentimental streak and surprising creativity in his hunting. And his identity does remain a mystery until the final chapters -- which I applaud.

London -- including some of the parts I know best, Greenwich and London Bridge -- is very present in this novel, and not just in a visual sense. Maria's blindfolded excursion to Borough Market made my skin creep: her sensory experience of the world is vivid, and so's her comfort with it. (Negative reviews of this book tend to dwell on her foolishness for remaining blind in the face of a threat to her life: but I appreciate that, unlike the ex who pressured her to have the operation, nobody here is forcing Maria to do something that she is so strongly against.)

I read and enjoyed Benedict's debut novel, The Beauty of Murder: that, too, was enjoyable because of the characters and the weirdness rather than the plot, though that plot was more firmly rooted in the supernatural than this one. I found Jonathan Dark, or the Evidence of Ghosts a captivating read: the theme of vision, of what is seen and what is overlooked, of watching and of experiencing the world with different senses, is a constant thread. (Perhaps because English -- maybe all spoken language? -- is so sight-oriented: 'I see', 'artistic vision', 'looking after you'.) Of course, where there is something to see there is also the unseen: the world of ghosts which permeates the world of the living; the person behind the camera; the darkness beyond Maria's blindfold; Jonathan Dark's secret. You could say this is a novel about who sees what.