“All fiction is a form of detective fiction. What is a novel if not a series of clues? A code to be cracked.”

As is suggested in the full title, Death of the Author is a story told in three parts. It challenges the reader to work out what is happening, but not in a way they may expect.

The first and longest section follows its narrator, a DCI working in North London, as he makes his way to the scene of an apparent murder. It is early on a weekday morning when a PSCO spots a body on the doorstep of a house in one of the more salubrious streets in the area. He phones it in, thereby making himself a person of interest in the case.

The DCI has been assigned the role of Senior Investigating Officer, requiring team leadership and decision making rather than detailed investigative work…