“Yes: readers would remember; readers would dare. The Crooked Man stormed bestseller lists worldwide. Reviewers praised it, some extravagantly. Sebastian Trapp, at long, long last, was back.” After a 10-year absence from novelizing, the main character in A. J. Finn’s new novel, End of Story, had returned to the typewriter and triumphed, though one could be forgiven for thinking that this sounds a lot like Finn giving himself a pep talk about his own reappearance after six years.
And why would readers have to “dare” to read it? A year after the extraordinary success of Finn’s debut psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window, Daniel Mallory (Finn’s real name) was the subject of a lethal takedown by Ian Parker in The New Yorker, in which Mallory, who worked in publishing, is portrayed as a creative and compulsive liar, misleading professors, colleagues, and employers about his work history and education (he did not have a doctorate from Oxford); faking a bout or two with cancer; claiming that his mother and brother had died from cancer and suicide, respectively; alienating colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic with his strange behavior; and borrowing elements of the book’s plot from the 1995 movie Copycat. Among other things.
During the gap between books, he kept his name in front of the public with a poorly received movie version of The Woman in the Window, starring Amy Adams, and a busy blurbing regime.
The new novel has been gestating for some time; Finn described a rough version of the plot in 2019. It revolves around the dying star that is Sebastian Trapp, a retired larger-than-life author of detective novels whose reputation was tarnished when his wife and son disappeared separately in 1999 and were never found. He and his second wife and daughter live in a Château revival mansion in San Francisco with eccentric décor that includes a taxidermied menagerie of all the French bulldogs Trapp ever owned.
A year after the extraordinary success of his debut psychological thriller, The Woman in the Window, [he] was the subject of a lethal takedown in The New Yorker.
Trapp is terminally ill and has engaged Nicky Hunter, a crime-fiction scholar with whom he’s been corresponding, to write a private “memory book” for loved ones. He’ll be dead in three months and is a writer himself, so this seems a bit odd. His reasons will ultimately become clear, but not before Nicky roams the shadowy streets of Fog City, seeking the truth from other sources.
Finn, who said The Woman in the Window was inspired by Rear Window, continues his Hitchcock obsession here, this time with Vertigo as the muse, mostly in terms of mood and setting. (Trapp’s defeated daughter, Madeleine, has the same name as Kim Novak’s character.)
Trapp is a campy, performative personality, a literary version of Peter O’Toole in My Favorite Year, minus the alcoholism. He wears suits at home, slathers his conversation with quotes from classic crime novels, and makes booming pronouncements such as “Our chariot awaits!” before roaring off in his Jaguar. His British gentleman detective, Simon St. John, is straight out of the golden age—an anomaly in the last quarter of the 20th century, when hard-boiled tough guys were more the fashion.
Being a fantasist is compatible with being a novelist, and Finn again proves to be a natural storyteller. But End of Story feels like the work of someone who’s been busting to write for a long time and could have used some reining in. It can be difficult to figure out who’s who at first, and a lot of sparkly, clever verbiage is tossed at the reader like confetti to keep us bedazzled and off-balance. The italicizing is odd (“Really interesting fellow. A colleague of sorts.”), the many quotes from old detective fiction feel show-offy, and the dialogue can be overly arch, as can its speakers.
But once you’ve got a handle on the characters—red herrings abound—and made your peace with similes such as “Her smile falls off like a false moustache,” it can be compelling and entertaining in a gothic-noir, Saltburn kind of way. As for the ending, in which much is revealed, readers may have a problem with the final twist, which is not entirely believable. However—and this goes for the whole book—you’ve got to admire its audacity.
Lisa Henricksson reviews mystery books at AIR MAIL. She lives in New York City
