The Wish to Kill: An Alex Kertész Mystery

The Wish to Kill

Soho Press, 224 pp., $21

Though The Wish to Kill is subtitled "an Alex Kertész mystery," it contains neither a mystery nor a hero worthy of series-detective status. Instead, Janet Hannah's debut novel whimpers along on the less-than-intriguing principle of death wishes, using a dull biochemist named Alex Kertész as a vehicle for ... well, nothing. Void of character dimension and suspense, The Wish to Kill serves as a prime example of how not to begin a potential literary franchise. When loathed professor Ilan Falk dies in a laboratory explosion at the University of Jerusalem, fellow faculty begin to wonder whether the blast was intentional. Did someone actually follow through with thoughts of ill will, or did Professor Falk simply smoke his cigar amid gaseous fumes? The answer: Who cares? Not even Nancy Drew would accept this case. Kertész doesn't pursue the matter beyond mere speculation until nearly two-thirds of the way through, when he finally decides that foul play might indeed be at stake. Little explanation is given as to why possible suspects would have murdered Professor Falk, other than his fraudulent results in an experiment using denatured goat antibodies. Moreover, the police are completely absent in all of the proceedings, presumably to allow Alex & Co. to spice up their humdrum academic existence. Outside of the professional realm, things are similarly boring for Alex ("there was only one more thing to do before going home, and that was to distill phenol"). At one point Hannah writes of Kertész, "There was nothing unusual or complicated about him," which could also be said about this book.