Fifteen year old Tim’s world changes for ever when he is attacked and emasculated by a gang of bullies. As an adult, devoting himself to revenge, he is repellently creative, a fine craftsman in everything he does, including murder.
Having apprenticed himself to José, a master joiner and craftsman in northern Spain, he becomes acutely aware of the aesthetics of the world around him and turns revenge into a fine art as he returns to his home turf in south-east Wales to single out each gang member for their grisly fate.
Tim also becomes obsessed with fine art images of Saint Sebastian, and even changes his name to that of the martyr. But can he create the perfect killing machine from wood and dovetail joints, and how much practice does he need before he achieves his goal?
This is a disturbing psychological thriller with a sociopath of a protagonist to rival that of American Psycho, and an erotic undercurrent matching The Wasp Factory. The debut novel’s main themes are obsession and the far-reaching evils of perfectionism, and its style is original, marrying suspenseful prose with fragmented narratives on woodwork techniques.
Jeremy Hughes comments on the challenges of creating a killer-protagonist with whom the reader can empathise,
“Tim is at one and the same time an obsessive victim, vulnerable, tortured, aggrieved, triumphant… he is a sensitive teenager changed forever by a traumatic event. He dedicates his life to revenge, develops specific skills which enable him to enter into the lives of those he wants to kill. He identifies with Saint Sebastian and travels the world visiting works of art which depict him. His obsessions cause him to speak about his interests with authority. Leaving modesty aside a moment, in Tim we have a complex central character capable of tenderness and extreme brutality; this together with the book’s exotic locations and opportunities for great set pieces would make it a great cinematic experience.”
Jeremy Hughes was one of the first students to study for the Master’s in writing at Oxford University, from which he graduated with distinction. He was awarded first prize in the Poetry Wales competition and his poetry was shortlisted for an Eric Gregory Award. He has published two pamphlets – breathing for all my birds (2000) and The Woman Opposite (2004) – and has widely published poetry, short fiction and reviews in British and American periodicals. Jeremy lives in Abergavenny, south-east Wales. Dovetail is his debut novel.
A subtly daring format and an easy, hypnotic style, at once tense and uncommon.
John Ballam, Oxford University
