The Color of Bee Larkham's Murder

April 1, 2018

Jasper Wishart, the 13-year-old protagonist of this debut adult novel from YA author Harris ("Jessica Cole: Model Spy" series, as Sarah Sky), hears sounds as colors, cannot recognize faces, and presents autistic tendencies. When Jasper and his widowed father, Ed, meet their new neighbor Bee Larkum, their comfortable routine changes: Bee's loud music, constant entertaining, and feeding of wild parakeets bring overstimulation to Jasper's world, causing stress and multiple misunderstandings between father and son. To navigate issues at school, the new noises in his neighborhood, and his feelings over the loss of his mother, Jasper paints. When Bee is found dead after a series of neighborhood incidents, Jasper's art becomes key to solving a murder in which he and his father may have unintentionally played a role. VERDICT Jasper's narration is confusing and disorienting, making his world tedious to understand at first. However, readers who stick with it past the halfway point will be rewarded with a compelling and emotionally charged mystery that warrants comparisons to Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time.--Tina Panik, Avon Free P.L., CT

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2018
A teenager with autism becomes embroiled in the murder of a neighbor--but as culprit or witness?Comparisons of this novel with The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time (2003) will be inevitable but, sadly, unwarranted. Thirteen-year-old Jasper Wishart, the protagonist of Harris' first novel for adults (after having written YA under a pseudonym), is on the spectrum, and what an infinitely varied spectrum it is. He has synesthesia--sights and, particularly, in his case, sounds evoke a range of colors most people can't see. But he is face-blind, unable to recognize even those closest to him except by hue of voice and clothing. He takes everything literally, including metaphors, idioms, and empty threats, like those of his blustery neighbor David Gilbert. The narrative, told exclusively from Jasper's first-person perspective, ratchets between past and present as Jasper tries to reconstruct events in his London street by painting the colors of his memories. He thinks he killed his new neighbor, Bee Larkham, but has only disordered images, a bloodied knife, and his own stomach slash wound as evidence. His father, who has raised Jasper alone since the deaths of his mother and grandmother, is coping by covering up--Jasper is sure Dad disposed of Bee's body. Jasper recalls how Bee, a musician and Australian transplant, fomented neighborhood squabbles by blaring loud music and deliberately luring wild parakeets to feeders in her front yard. (These descendants of escaped pet birds have become an invasive pest in the U.K.) Even more disruptive is Bee's questionable behavior with her young music students, especially Jasper's schoolmate Lucas Drury. Although Harris strives to keep things coherent with chapter headings dated using Jasper's idiosyncratic color markers, readers must work to make sense of it all. Unpacking Jasper's color-coded reality becomes as tedious as deciphering hieroglyphics. Those few instances when Jasper delivers a straight narrative are essential for exposition purposes but feel like a violation of the novel's fourth wall. The end result of Harris' determination to spare no synesthetic detail, is, well, monochromatic.A potentially engaging mystery embedded in an overly daunting puzzle.

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Starred review from May 21, 2018
In this fantastic debut, Harris enters the technicolor mind of 13-year-old Jasper Wishart. Jasper has always had synesthesia, which for him means he sees specific colors for all the sounds around him—people’s distinct voices, barking dogs, slamming doors. Jasper, who lives alone with his disinterested father and suffers from learning disabilities, spends much of his time gazing out his window at an oak tree filled with parakeets. The parakeet-occupied tree across the street belongs to Bee Larkham, a new girl who has been causing trouble in the neighborhood by playing her music too loudly and feeding the noisy birds. Jasper’s synesthesia hampers his ability to recognize people’s faces, and when Bee suddenly disappears, Jasper, who keeps seeing the “ice blue crystals” of murder, must paint the events leading up to that night to get things straight and solve the mystery. Readers enamored of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and The Rosie Project will delight in Harris’s sparkling novel.