Sophia C. reviewed on 2/17/2013 + 289 more book reviews

Adam Rosss debut novel Mr. Peanut is a moving exploration of the highs and lows of marriage. Alice Pepin is found dead from peanut-induced anaphylaxis in her New York apartment after she begins a mysterious, finally-successful weight loss campaign. Her husband David, a successful computer game designer trying to bring his novel to completion, is a prime suspect being investigated by two detectives with particular issues in their own marriages. Ward Hastrolls wife has suddenly and stubbornly stopped getting out of bed. His partner is the Sam Sheppard convicted of killing his wife in 1954 but later acquitted at a new trial. A shadowy figure called Mobius further complicates the picture. More than a mystery, this recursive story resembles the Escher drawings that inspire Davids games as it explores the depths of the marriage bond, love and hate. Rosss prose is inspired, although a couple of examples of sloppy editing made me worry how well the pieces of the story fit together. In the end the sections on Hastroll and Sheppard do not neatly tie in, except for the marriage theme. In short, I found this book to be a rich, arresting meditation on human faults and emotions, imagination and reality, partly inspired by Alfred Hitchcocks films.

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