By Joël Dicker
Paperback - £8.99
When I read The Truth About The Harry Quebert Affair in 2015, I found it to be utterly engrossing and struggled to do anything else until I had finished the book. Having now read the latest novel by Swiss author, Joël Dicker, I can say that his effect on me has not changed.
In The Baltimore Boys, Dicker has brought back Marcus Goldman as the narrator of the book. Based in 2012 in Florida, Goldman is attempting to write another bestseller, following his success with G for Goldstein. His focus instead is on a ‘tragedy’ that occurred in 2004, and the events leading up to it.
Goldman is fixated on the relationship between the two branches of his family, the ‘Baltimore Goldmans’ and the ‘Montclair Goldmans’, he himself belonging to the latter. He chronicles his fiercely fraternal relationship with his two Baltimore cousins: Hillel and Woody. Alongside his accounts of his youth and his history of ‘The Goldman Gang’, Goldman uncovers the history of the rift in his family that led to the Baltimore Goldmans’ affluence, in stark contrast to his own family’s circumstances.
This is a story of love and loyalty, but also of jealousy and insecurity, as Goldman is forced to address everything he thought he knew about his family.