If We Were Villains
M.L. Rio
2017, 355 pages
Mystery Fiction
Oliver Marks was a drama student before going to jail. Now that his parole has been approved, he is the only person who can finally ease the misgivings of the policeman who put him there. Oliver agrees, at last, to tell him the truth.
Oliver’s story begins at a small, private conservatory of the arts, where his class of seven drama students have been eating, sleeping and breathing Shakespeare for three years. The students’ lives are twined together by their dedication to Shakespeare and to his words, which have become the common language of the group and are a constant, insistent, almost melodic background to their lives. At the very moment when they have completed their third-year play and are celebrating becoming the new senior class, a terrible tragedy takes place, throwing their work into chaos and their lives out of control.
The world portrayed in If We Were Villains is claustrophobic and limited. This group of modern students has almost no existence outside of playing Shakespeare and drinking. The narrator seems to understand and appreciate male characters, but even his closest female friends are painfully stereotyped. Still, I found the book an engaging if simplistic read, and wolfed it down in one sitting, lost in the language and the stream of revelations that keep the story moving rapidly. There’s a mysterious opening and an almost equally mysterious finale. Read this book with a friend and find out what they think of the ending!
Tricia Hutchins
Concord Public Library
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