We Are the Hanged Man, by Douglas Lindsay

It’s always a pleasure to come across a well-written novel. But good writing doesn’t necessarily mean the reader will like the novel, and in We Are the Hanged Man I find a work of literature that not only leaves me, personally, cold, but repels me. Your liters per kilometer may vary.

Robert Jericho is a police detective in the small city of Wells, in England. At one time he was very famous as a London detective, but he didn’t enjoy that, and voluntarily retired to a quieter town to serve out his time until retirement. He suffers from profound, chronic depression, dating back to the unsolved disappearance of his wife, years ago. He is puzzled when he starts getting envelopes delivered to him, each one containing a Tarot card — “The Hanged Man.”

Meanwhile, his supervisor (who loathes him) has come up with a delicious plan to force him to resign. A TV reality show, “Britain’s Got Justice” is looking for a bona fide detective to serve as a judge, and she manages to get Jericho that post. So he is plunged into the passionately shallow world of television production, a world author Lindsay takes great pleasure in verbally drawing and quartering. Jericho’s congenital misanthropy is well justified in this environment, but that doesn’t make his discomfort less.

Then one of the contestants disappears. The program suddenly becomes deadly serious (though the production team doesn’t notice), and Jericho finds himself drawn into a personal struggle with a monster from his own past.

We Are the Hanged Man is well-written and well plotted. The characters are (generally) believable. But the whole thing displeased me, and while I did finish it I was glad to be shut of it at the end. Two reasons:

One, the book was as sensationalist as the reality shows it lampoons. Lots of sex, lots of violence, and incessant obscene language.

Secondly (and maybe this won’t bother other people as much as it does me), we are expected to believe that although Jericho is very depressed and uncommunicative, he is somehow desperately attractive to every woman he comes in contact with. He “gets lucky” several times in this story, without really trying.

Trust me. I know about this. Depression is not an attractive quality.

Not recommended.

7 thoughts on “We Are the Hanged Man, by Douglas Lindsay”

  1. Darn those men, who those depressed or afflicted in other ways, are desperately attractive to women. You know, I was wondering the other day whether it would be funny enough to have a man who wanted to do the right thing in whatever adventure he took up and was plagued by women fawning over him. Sounds as if there are already plenty of novels similar to that.

  2. Did they ever put Hai Karate up against Brut?

    I still remember the celebrity endorsement for the latter.

    Float like a butterfly,

    Sting Like a bee.

    The smell of Brut

    And the punch of Ali.

  3. There need to be more private eyes who are unattractive and lonely, rather than unrealistically attractive and Heroically Lonely(TM).

    You’d think it’d go more nicely with the drinking habit.

  4. Rambler,How do you define the difference between lonely and Heroically Lonely(TM)?

    I think Toby Peters or Lew Fonesca fit the unattractive and lonely mold. Or are they merely unattractive while striving to be Heroically Lonely(TM)?

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