Review: The Deluded by Wolf Augustus

Title: The Deluded

Author: Wolf Agustus

Publisher: Self-Published/Kindle Unlimited

Length: 100 Pages

Category: Noir Mystery

At a Glance: A dark and convoluted tale of murder that will have you suspecting everyone. Muahahaha!

Reviewed By: Ben

Blurb: The year is 1949. The East End of London is still recovering from the blitz. Fitzgerald O’Sullivan is a young man with romantic notions of living like an impoverished writer. In an attempt to escape his past, he abandons his life of privilege and rents a room in the East End. There he meets Roy Parker, a chirpy Cockney with a working-class charm. Roy asks Fitz to write a story about how he saved the lives of two Jewish ladies during the war. What follows is a far-fetched tale filled with lies and exaggerations. Roy is obviously a fantasist, but he is also an irrepressible charmer and Fitz becomes infatuated with him. But Fitz doesn’t know that there is a kernel of truth in the tale he is telling. When the body of a Jewish woman is fished up off the coast of Kent, the real story slowly begins to unfold. Fitz soon finds himself embroiled in a world of theft, deceit and murder.

The Deluded is a noir thriller where nothing and no one is what they at first seems to be. It is a dark tale of love, bitterness and vengeance set in the chaotic aftermath of the Second World War.

Inspired by the pulp fiction novels of the 1940’s and 50’s, the Gay Noir series emulates the dark, thrilling, sensational and taboo breaking stories of the post war era and gives them a homoerotic tinge. ‘The Deluded’ is the first in this series, but others will soon follow.

Review: For a short piece of fiction, this story hooked me immediately and had me completely absorbed the entire piece, trying to find our killer. No one was who they seemed and everyone was suspect. I loved it.

Our protagonist, Fitz, isn’t so much of a protagonist but more a kinda lousy guy who is a self-proclaimed writer. At a bar, he meets Roy Parker, a crook who begs Fitz to write the story of how he saved two Jewish women from the war. For a seemingly innocent guy, Fitz willingly gets sucked into petty crime, black-out drinking, groping a man without his permission, and falls into the story of the two Jewish women, which becomes a sordid tale of murder. And it’s not over.

At first I thought Fitz was weak and uninteresting. He’s a rich kid who ran away to live on his own, but is still clearly looked after by his mother, and he’s easily goaded. Despite all that, he surprised me on many occasions. In the end, I thought he was pretty solid, and I was impressed with his character work.

Roy was trouble from the beginning, and I wasn’t entirely sure of his motives. He asks Fitz to write a story of how he’s a hero for saving two women… but one of the women is dead. That doesn’t seem too heroic. The other is living with him and doesn’t seem happy Roy is blabbing to an aspiring author. Their relationship is clearly complicated, and how Fitz works into Roy’s plans is one of the greatest mysteries of the book.

Roy is a master manipulator who quickly identifies Fitz’s infatuation with him. He leads Fitz on, tormenting and seducing him into his world. Roy’s sexuality was a bit of a puzzle. He has sex with the woman living with him, but she doesn’t seem to like him much, and he doesn’t seem to like her. However, they are possessive of each other. On top of that, he’s blatantly homophobic but has been seen in places only queer people go, so I wondered if he was bisexual, but if he were bisexual, why didn’t he indulge Fitz? Instead, he strings him along as a power play, and Fitz gets nothing but vague caresses. Again, his motive was a mystery to me. Perhaps the only true answer is that he’s a delusional narcissist. He was also an excellent character.

As far as plot goes, I was very satisfied with the murder mystery. It was a fabulously constructed, revealing only enough information to keep me gnawing at the bit. With the damp atmosphere, loose morals, no heroes allowed, and twisted murder, I was head-over-heels. Noir is one of my favorite genres; I’d recommend this story if you feel the same.

You can buy The Deluded here:
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