The Murderer - Penguin Modern Classics (Paperback)

A beautiful writer and an unforgettable book. The Murderer, Roy Heath's masterpiece, is written with immediacy and precision. In a few sentences, Heath creates a psychological tension that is totally convincing and gripping. Slowly, as the main character grows more obsessed and distant from others, he also becomes more complex and fascinating and memorable. A literary thriller ... The Murderer is a strange, luminous, and beguiling work by a writer with a mysterious and captivating Caribbean voice, who shied away from publicity and is now resurrected. A character who might have been created by Dostoevsky. A picture of a lost soul emerges that is mysteriously authentic and unique as a work of art. A hauntingly powerful story. A notable study of paranoia, remarkable for its psychological insight and the restraint of its climax. Guyanese authors are a radiant constellation, and Roy Heath stands rightfully among them. His unique style stands out from others of his time, and ours.

The prose style is graceful, old-fashioned, almost Latinate. The dialogue on the other hand, is pure Guyanese vernacular, and the gap between the two, between the sense of distance in the prose and intimacy in the dialogue, makes the novel chilling and tense and deeply original.

This enthralling novel plunges the reader into a painting by Van Gogh, a swirl of emotion unhinged from a verifiable reality. Or is it a portrait of a mind seen through a glass darkly? Heath takes his time to distinguish fantasy from delusion, play from mental decay... The Murderer is numbered among the Caribbean's leading psychological novels, a nuanced portrait of the disintegrating individual psyche.