Book Review - The Book of Mirrors

E. O. Chirovici’s psychological thriller almost did not see the light of day. It was turned down by numerous publishers and it was only on the advice of Robert Peett, the founder of Holland House Books, that Chirovici persisted. He was eventually signed by a leading UK literary agent and has since enjoyed a competitive auction and world-wide rights sales.

The Book of Mirrors is narrated from the different perspectives of three men and focuses on the brutal murder of the renowned psychologist Professor Joseph Weider in 1987. Twenty seven years later, Richard Flynn, a former student at Princeton, sends a book proposal to a literary agent, Peter Katz, which describes the professor’s final days. Flynn was a prime suspect at the time, but no-one was ever tried for Weider’s murder and the case went cold. Katz believes Flynn’s manuscript contains a confession or holds clues to the murderer’s identity. Either way, he thinks it’s a potential blockbuster, but Flynn dies before delivering his novel. Katz hires John Keller, an investigative journalist, to pull the threads together. Keller fails to ascertain who is telling the truth and, increasingly disillusioned, passes on his findings to the detective originally
responsible for the case who is now retired and suffering from the early stages of Alzheimer’s.

Does The Book of Mirrors deserve the hype? Yes and no. Impressively, Chirovici writes in English rather than his native Romanian and he has produced a strong plot which keeps the reader guessing until the very end. His three narrators, however, are sketchily drawn and the motivations of crucial characters lack psychological
depth. This is disappointing considering the book’s central theme is the cognitive neuroscience of memory.

Although there is a meta-fictional quality to the novel, the literary quotes preceding each of the three sections are slightly misleading – this is less a literary thriller and more firmly rooted in the crime fiction genre. The cover’s strapline, “one man’s truth is another man’s lie”, is an empty statement – probably the result of an over-enthusiastic marketing team.

Caveats aside, The Book of Mirrors engages on a number of levels. Chirovici delights in leading the reader down various blind alleys and keeps us turning the pages until his unexpected denouement.

Originally published by the TLS