What do you think?
Rate this book
In Lucem
You pour your income into your child’s private education and the hope that they might one day gain admittance to the prestigious Huxley College. Once there however, instead of a graduation gown, you’re left with a corpse and a confusing suicide note.
IN LUCEM is a dark academia, historical and psychological mystery, set in 1969 amongst the gothic landscape of the prestigious Huxley College. Students have tragically taken their own lives, but their reasons for doing so point towards philosophy rather than suffering.
Detective Robert Melling returns to his alma mater as a personal favour to an old friend, whose daughter’s suicide note is riddled with Platonism. Determined to find the truth of the matter, Melling discovers a darker past to his beloved university, soon finding himself under the pressure of saving more students’ lives. Will he do so in time however, when death’s door seems half-open for him too?
*
Dan Brown meets Dorian Gray in this dark-academia, historical mystery. With a writing style reminiscent of classic traditions, Julian Kitsz brings a romantic feel to this psychological peripeteia between Pre-War Paris and the timeless Huxley College – a conglomeration of Cambridge, Oxford, and Durham, with all their prestige as well as their hidden secrets. Kitsz weaves a narrative both philosophical and psychological, with a tale reminding us of Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’, set within a Stevenson gothic tradition, with a Dan Brown intellectual clue-chasing. Kitsz presents the rich inner thoughts of a tortured male detective, harrowed by war and widowhood, all the while raising larger questions on the nature of British exceptionalism, the dangers of influence, and the mysteries of the human subconscious.
*
In 1939, Melling is a handsome, overeducated, and overdressed Englishman, spending his post-education years (and his inheritance) casting smiles on the lips of Parisian belles, alluring them with his wordy philosophies. Melling is eternally armed with a quotation. That is until he is stunned into silence by the singer in a Berlioz Opera who seems able to conjoin art and reality. Meeting her will finally jolt him out of a life of excessive romanticization.
In 1969, the widowed Robert Melling is a reputable detective at Scotland Yard. He challenges the over-intelligence and quirkiness of Poirot or Holmes, qualifying the dark side of existence with the lines of literature he used to study. A distraught call from an old friend finds him returning to his alma mater to investigate a suicide. When more students become involved, leaving sporadic clues, the local police and academics are desperate for Melling to stop searching for someone to blame. As the plot develops, Melling finds himself under pressure to save the lives of Huxley’s students and root out the evil which controls them. However, Melling’s own psychological troubles place him on his own ticking clock, haunted night after night by a familiar woman who seems engendered from himself. Will he be able to talk the next generation off the ledge whilst he too gazes below into the nothingness?
IN LUCEM is a dark academia, historical and psychological mystery, set in 1969 amongst the gothic landscape of the prestigious Huxley College. Students have tragically taken their own lives, but their reasons for doing so point towards philosophy rather than suffering.
Detective Robert Melling returns to his alma mater as a personal favour to an old friend, whose daughter’s suicide note is riddled with Platonism. Determined to find the truth of the matter, Melling discovers a darker past to his beloved university, soon finding himself under the pressure of saving more students’ lives. Will he do so in time however, when death’s door seems half-open for him too?
*
Dan Brown meets Dorian Gray in this dark-academia, historical mystery. With a writing style reminiscent of classic traditions, Julian Kitsz brings a romantic feel to this psychological peripeteia between Pre-War Paris and the timeless Huxley College – a conglomeration of Cambridge, Oxford, and Durham, with all their prestige as well as their hidden secrets. Kitsz weaves a narrative both philosophical and psychological, with a tale reminding us of Tartt’s ‘The Secret History’, set within a Stevenson gothic tradition, with a Dan Brown intellectual clue-chasing. Kitsz presents the rich inner thoughts of a tortured male detective, harrowed by war and widowhood, all the while raising larger questions on the nature of British exceptionalism, the dangers of influence, and the mysteries of the human subconscious.
*
In 1939, Melling is a handsome, overeducated, and overdressed Englishman, spending his post-education years (and his inheritance) casting smiles on the lips of Parisian belles, alluring them with his wordy philosophies. Melling is eternally armed with a quotation. That is until he is stunned into silence by the singer in a Berlioz Opera who seems able to conjoin art and reality. Meeting her will finally jolt him out of a life of excessive romanticization.
In 1969, the widowed Robert Melling is a reputable detective at Scotland Yard. He challenges the over-intelligence and quirkiness of Poirot or Holmes, qualifying the dark side of existence with the lines of literature he used to study. A distraught call from an old friend finds him returning to his alma mater to investigate a suicide. When more students become involved, leaving sporadic clues, the local police and academics are desperate for Melling to stop searching for someone to blame. As the plot develops, Melling finds himself under pressure to save the lives of Huxley’s students and root out the evil which controls them. However, Melling’s own psychological troubles place him on his own ticking clock, haunted night after night by a familiar woman who seems engendered from himself. Will he be able to talk the next generation off the ledge whilst he too gazes below into the nothingness?
360 pages, Kindle Edition
Published December 17, 2023
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 2, 2024
rtc but SO SO OBSESSED I NEED MORE THIS WAS BRILLIANT
April 23, 2024
This book reads as if it was genuinely written by somebody who has genuinely lived through the 20s and WWII.
Great characters, plot and heart about grief and the fragilities of life.
Great characters, plot and heart about grief and the fragilities of life.
May 7, 2026
Ahhh actually so fucking good, it’s lowkey getting me into hermeticism and philosophy, and I’ve never been interested in it before
Complex characters, easy to follow, flashbacks, amazing ambiance, and quite devastating in a good way. You might learn some new words too
Complex characters, easy to follow, flashbacks, amazing ambiance, and quite devastating in a good way. You might learn some new words too
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews