The Execution [Paperback]

Hugo Wilcken writes beautifully: he is wonderfully literate. He can conjure up an image or a mood with a phrase or two. Mood is important in this novel. The protagonist finds himself on a path leading possibly to destruction - and whether it is due to a fatal flaw in his character, as in the great tragedies, or a set of circumstances inexorably snowballing out of control, is a question for the reader to ponder. The psychological portrait of a man losing his grip is drawn expertly.

Matthew Bourne is the successful young leader of a human rights campaign, for whom the African dissident's life he is working to save is both just another job and a symbol of his own mortality. He has a beautiful partner - an up-and-coming artist who is beginning to make her mark in London, a daughter on whom he dotes, the opportunity for casual affairs - if he so desires, and the chance to make a difference in the world through his job. But unexpectedly, things start to unravel, starting with an obligation to a colleague to spend some time with him when tragedy strikes. From here on, Bourne's reality begins to change, subtly but constantly; things he would rather not have to acknowledge or deal with crop up continually, perceptions shift, he starts to suffer mood swings.

This precarious state of shifting sands in the protagonist's reality put me in mind of several other of my favourite writers. Take this small gem:
"I was so tired, I was almost under the spell of the ordinariness of everything - it was as if today's events were quite a separate affair that had no relevance to my domestic existence. It was the way I sometimes felt about the people being killed in Africa."

There is often no explanation of why certain things come to mind or seem important: it is like being inside someone's mind where logic and cause-and-effect do not neatly tie everything together. Bright, warm sunlight, or a feeling of wellbeing can be a comfort or a portent of danger. And despite this novel's being esentially an inner monologue, the pace never flags. I read it with an ever-quickening heartbeat, the same way I would watch a good thriller.

Why has there been so little buzz surrounding this brilliant, thoughtful young writer's work? This is the sort of novel that one would expect an astute editor at the Guardian or Times to have singled out.

At first I found it hard to decide whether Wilcken had, with total skill, perfectly summed up the laissez fair attitude his central character has to the people who work with him and care for him, or whether that is just how he writes.

After a while it became apparent that it was talented authorship, as Wilcken offers the odd peek into a softer side of Matthew Bourne that leaves you, almost against your will, feeling sorry for him as his world starts to disintegrate through his own disinterest and then, shockingly, almost unbelievably, he displays feelings and passions you felt beyond him, which quickly accelerates the disintingration.

A perfectly portrayed downward spiral that takes the reader down down with it into the abyss of despair, made all the more frustrating by how obvious it would have been to avoid and all the sadder by the lives it takes with it.

A brilliant debut that has left this one reader eager for more.