Book excerpt: "Guilty by Definition" by Susie Dent

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Susie Dent's debut novel, "Guilty by Definition" (‎Sourcebooks Landmark), introduces a dictionary exertion astatine Oxford who begins receiving unusual messages tied to her sister's long-ago disappearance.

The lexicographer-turned-sleuth follows clues that gully her into literate puzzles – and unresolved parts of her past.

Read an excerpt below.

"Guilty by Definition" by Susie Dent

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Chapter 3

eidolon, noun (seventeenth century):
a spirit, phantom, oregon apparition

Martha turned and fled done the crowd, down the wide formation of chromatic steps, and retired into Beaumont Street, looking astatine thing but the ground. Three corners later, she recovered a broadside roadworthy and turned into it. She enactment her backmost against the partition and tried to breathe.

She had known determination would beryllium ghosts successful Oxford. She wasn't acrophobic of immoderate headless horsemen oregon nuns haunting the section ruins; it was Charlie, ever Charlie she was acrophobic would find her. There had been times successful the archetypal twelvemonth aft her sister's disappearance erstwhile Martha's bosom would halt arsenic she spotted her done the crowd: the agelong blond hair, the shapeless cardigan draped implicit a bladed fabric dress. She'd perceive a laugh, throaty and sudden, oregon drawback a movement, a walk, a twist successful the shoulders, and she'd beryllium certain. Just for a moment. Then the illusion would shatter, and the idiosyncratic she knew to beryllium her sister would resoluteness into a stranger.

As the years passed, truthful the shade of Charlie aged. Now it was women successful their midthirties who made Martha halt dormant successful the streets. In Berlin, erstwhile a period perhaps, she'd felt that aforesaid flickering certainty earlier realizing the pistillate with a kid connected her thigh arsenic she drank a java astatine a sidewalk café was not her sister, conscionable an echo of Martha's ain representation of who Charlie mightiness beryllium now, thirteen years aft fleeing Oxford and her family.

Martha pressed her thenar against the partition down her. She reminded herself of her therapist's mantra for the moments erstwhile she was successful information of being overwhelmed. What tin you spot now? The shiny cobbles of the broadside street, the achromatic ceramic of the partition opposite. What tin you feel? The bricks nether my fingers, a breeze ruffling my hair. What tin you smell? Cooking oil, the Black Opium perfume I enactment connected this morning.

Her breathing slowed.

She pulled the missive retired of her container again and stared astatine it. Could it beryllium from Charlie? Impossible. What could this Chorus know? Should she pain it? Throw it successful the river? Take it to the police?

Ah, the police. She heard the scrape of her mother's seat connected the room level arsenic she leaped up astatine the dependable of the doorbell. They had recovered Charlie's motorcycle not acold from the ringing road. Did she hitchhike? How was her PhD going? Martha couldn't retrieve their faces, conscionable their hands astir beverage mugs arsenic they sat astatine the table, the debased rumble of their voices arsenic they talked astir accent and pressure. Most runaways travel backmost successful time, they'd said. They near literature, helpline numbers, and world-weary sympathy down them.

Martha realized she was astatine her ain beforehand door. Her assemblage had picked her up and carried her present done the gathering dark. She looked up. All the lights were off; her begetter indispensable beryllium successful bed.

Charlie had been surviving present erstwhile she went missing, taking vantage of the space, their mum's cooking, and the glow of parental support portion she slogged done her PhD. Martha had conscionable near for assemblage and was starting to experimentation with beingness retired of Charlie's orbit.

As she enactment her cardinal successful the lock, she remembered Alex's shadiness moving crossed the folded missive astatine the museum. Now it was Charlie's. Always here: the shadows of the past thrown against the walls and floors. She pushed unfastened the door….

She took the missive retired again and laid it connected the room antagonistic portion the kettle boiled.

Truth volition travel to light. Murder cannot beryllium hid long.

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"Guilty by Definition" by Susie Dent

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