The Case of Aleister Stratton by K.G.V. Barnwell

Play-wise, April has been quite busy: Hamlet, Love In Idleness, The Goat, Othello, Arsenic and Old Lace, Gabriel, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, The Dumb Waiter and The Dock Brief...phew! But in spite of these distractions, I've also managed to squeeze some interesting reading in.

I was intending to read the fourth installment of Sharon Bolton's "Lacey Flint" series of detective novels, however, I got side tracked by a book that a friend bought for me. She was interested to see what my take on it was.

The darker and more twisted a good crime/mystery novel is, the better! From the Famous Five and Nancy Drew, to Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes, my childhood was never devoid of a good mystery to solve and questionable characters to think about. As an adult I've continued to favour crime novels more than any other genre, but what I've never thought about is whether someone could wake up one morning, convinced they had committed murder, but not know whether it was a dream or reality.

The book my friend bought for me was The Case of Aleister Stratton - Compiled by K.G.V Barnwell. I was instantly intrigued the moment I saw the cover with its old fashioned typewritten font. Before opening the pages I was reminded of the occultist Aleister Crowley, due to the unusual spelling of the name, so I was anticipating a dark, twisted tale, and that, I am pleased to say is what I got. The premis of the story is what it would be like to wake up one morning, believing that you have committed a murder. Is it a dream, or is it reality? The mind is a powerful organ, but just how powerful can it be?

Little touches such as the novella being "compiled" rather than "written by" appealed to my strange sense of nostalgia. (My friend once called me a Victorian throwback because I told her that tea comes from a teapot, and NOT a Tassimo!)

The Case of Aleister Stratton is something of a revelation. I've not read anything like it before.  Kate Barnwell is known for her poetry, and that is clearly evident in her prose. This is a novella full of poetic imagery; you get swept away with words which create a painting in the mind. Maybe I enjoyed the tale because it appealed to my antiquated sensibilities, the words painted a bygone Edwardian era. The details and imagery of the mother's bedroom were exquisite, you were transported into the room, as though you, the reader, were actually walking around in it. You could imagine being able to pick things up from the bedside table. I half expected Sherlock Holmes to appear to tell me the game was afoot!

"Something has been done, but not as I thought"

Aleister believes he has killed his mother and his sister, he confides his dreadful crime to a professor of English Literature, turning the poor man's life upside down. It is compelling reading. Are we voyeurs of a horrific crime, or are we just seeing into someone's vivid imagination? This drifting between Aleister's conscious and unconscious mind makes intriguing and compulsive reading. This is no ordinary crime novel. It mixes the Kafkaesque disturbed mind with the eloquent language of Edgar Allen Poe. It looks at the darker side of life, the bleakness of human nature, questioning why we do the things we do, whilst interweaving the beauty and complexities of the English language. 

This is a novella which warrants the readers attention, so curl up in your favourite chair and be transported to a bygone age. Once you have picked the book up, you won't be able to put it back down.

Genre: Crime, Mystery, History, Fiction

Release Date: 5^th September 2016 – Paperback

Publisher: Grosvenor Artist Management

Pages: 140

 

 

 

 

 

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