Watson's Apology by Beryl Bainbridge (Carroll & Graf, 2011)

[image error]A very engaging and flawlessly executed novel by the masterful Bainbridge based upon a real murder case that occurred in London in 1870. After almost thirty years of marriage the Rev. Watson, a clergyman and headmaster of a small school for boys, violently murders his wife on a Sunday afternoon.

Bainbridge begins the book with the couples awkward and desperate courtship and marriage -- a marriage based upon mutual need and very little affection.  Things only get worse over the years as both Rev. and Mrs. Watson become more solitary and eccentric, slipping slowly and irrevocably into madness.

Bainbridge skips across the years, observing the couple at roughly five year intervals.  Her point of view is cold and analytical -- there's not a trace of warmth or wit in the book and no authorial voice or presence.  A dispassionate book about a crime that arose out of a sick and twisted passion.