Hangman

Gregory Pike is a sessional English instructor at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland.

The first chapter of this gory, suspenseful mystery counts down to Peter
Bryce Haddon being hung by the state of Washington for a crime he
didn’t commit. In Chapter 2, a lawyer waits for the hangman, a
vigilante executioner, to find him in the dark. The novel unfolds in a
series of flashbacks that reveal the injustice of Haddon’s death, the
viciousness of the hangman’s attacks, and the cunning of the police
who try to stop the murders. The chapters count down to the hangman
finding the lawyer while a Mountie tries to figure it all out.

The hangman always leaves near the victims’ bodies a child’s game
called Hangman. In this game, a gallows is drawn and one player guesses
letters in a word puzzle. A correct guess earns another guess; an
incorrect guess means a body part is drawn, until the puzzle is solved
or a complete body is executed. Slade’s hangman adds a twist: he kills
someone and draws the game in blood to start and update the game. The
words in the puzzle hint at the hangman’s identity.

The whodunit has a few false leads, the narrative’s suspense is
maintained through cliffhangers, and the murders are grisly. I truly
enjoyed the novel’s in-depth lessons about hanging—its history, its
meaning, its techniques, and its consequences. I was also interested in
the appendix that discusses Slade’s research and inspiration.
However, I found the book’s dialogue trite, the characters
underdeveloped and unrealistic, and the prose hackneyed and sometimes
condescending.