BOOK REVIEW: GUILTY BY DEFINITION by Susie Dent

BOOK REVIEW: GUILTY BY DEFINITION by Susie Dent
Bonnier through Allen & Unwin, October 2024
Paperback, rrp AU$39.99
Reviewed by Shane Pinnegar
88%

Brit TV fans will be familiar with Susie Dent as the resident lexicographer from Dictionary Corner in shows such as Countdown and Eight Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown and know that words are literally her trade.

Instead of just commentating on individual words, now she has strung an awful lot of them together to weave an intriguing tale in this, her debut novel.

Guilty By Definition follows Martha, newly appointed senior editor at the Clarendon English Dictionary, whose team receives a series of cryptic anonymous letters which seems to allude towards her elder sister’s disappearance a decade before.

As should be expected from a lexicographer, the clues to Charlie’s disappearance are couched in wickedly clever word games, Shakespearean references, and take the team all their wiles to decipher.

It’s a remarkably clever story worthy of the likes of Agatha Christie, a ‘where is she’ as much as a whodunnit, and our Susie can’t help but sprinkle a myriad of obscure words and their meanings through the text. This is far more interesting and relevant than school-teacherly, but there is undoubtedly an educational aspect to the story, and a fun one at that.

For fans of thrilling mysteries you can really sink your teeth into, as well as fans of the language and wordsmiths of all hue, Guilty By Definition is – if we are allowed to feel we know Dent at all from her TV appearances – typically intelligent, demure and witty of its author.

 

Category: Book Reviews