Murder mystery set in Cambridge (intriguing page turner)

10th August 2017

Yesterday by Felicia Yap, murder mystery set in Cambridge.

This novel has had a strong build up to publication, a story of murder mystery, a tale of revenge.

An intriguing, philosophical page-turner THE OBSERVER

Yesterday is already a 2017 Literary Event…ends with a magnificent twist NEWSWEEK

Yesterday has already created quite a stir BUSTLE

At the heart of the novel is the investigation into the death of Sophia Ayling, an attractive woman whose body is found bobbing amongst the reeds in the river, weighed down by beautifully polished stones in the manner of Viriginia Woolf’s death. How she came to meet her death and who is responsible form the skeleton of the simply crafted and at times philosophical whodunnit (even I could follow all the ins and outs of the investigative process!).

TripFiction’s Tina with Felicia at Headline, London

The real nub of the book, however, is that all the people in the world –  it’s set in 2015 – have limited memory, and have done for as long as anyone can remember (but of course they can’t). The populace is largely divided into Monos (who have a memory limited to one day, which kicks in at age 18) and Duos, who have two day’s worth of memory (starting at age 23). And much of the book explores how people, in this parallel contemporary universe, manage the lack of personal history, with neither collective nor individual memory, and how this permeates every single area of human life. People have to resort to an iDiary, designed of course by the wonderful Steve Jobs, to recall their daily details. The characters acknowledge: “We are but the sum total of our digital presence“.

The characters are like marionettes governed by technology. Without recourse to aide memories, the people are nothing. They live their lives in “a blissful cloak of forgetfulness“.

The characters do feel wooden and oftentimes two-dimensional, portrayed as victims of their circumstances, but that is inevitably how they would be. One can ponder the notion of how we, as humans, are made up of experience and memories, and if we have neither, then what exactly are we? It is a brave author who consciously chooses to portray her characters with traits that will not necessarily endear the reader to them – Mark Henry Evans the author and aspiring politician is under suspicion and is pretty selfish; his wife Claire is depressive (theirs is a union of mono and duo and is only just being sanctioned in law, but is generally not tolerated); Sophia has sociopathic tendencies, and has spent many years out of society in the North of Scotland because of her mental health issues – she binned her diaries, for goodness sake, and that is enough to attract the attention of the mental health workers! And DCI Hans Richardson, the investigating officer from the Cambridgeshire Constabulary, has the feel of a policeman from the 1970s, stolid, plodding, and no doubt wearing a mackintosh (yes, OK, I am thinking Columbo). He is actually a Mono, but has blagged his way into the police force which is only open to the more intelligent Duo echelon. He is always anxious that he will be unmasked.

Duos, because of their extended memory, are superior to Monos, and so there is a ready-made and established class system. Monos are by and large too bovine to even attempt to change the status quo. There are the occasional “freaks” who have a full complement of memories stored, but they are certainly rare. It is not a society that is in any way enticing!

Just how do you investigate a murder when everyone reaches for their diaries to recall events? Surely they could falsify and invent, I would have thought? But no matter. For me this is an interesting read, because it begs the reader to question what it means to be human. I felt, at times, that I stood on the fringes, peering in at a peculiar and hierarchical society that felt so unreal that I just couldn’t connect – a clear transference from the characters in the book (and that in itself is an interesting psychological effect). There is a twist at the end which brings the story to a well rounded conclusion. The writing style, too, makes it very readable. It will, I think, divide readers and prove to be a real “Marmite” book.

In TripFiction terms, the novel is certainly set in Cambridge, there are plenty of references to places of interest, but it is merely a backdrop and not an integral character in the narrative.

Book launch

Tina for the TripFiction team

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