Death and Loss

The author develops the theme of death through N's investigation of what he believes to be his father's murder, borrowing tropes from the genres of noir mystery and horror. As the plot unfolds, N's investigation mimics that of the Swedish detective in the mystery novel he is reading. He investigates clues and interacts with a series of suspicious characters, hoping to learn more about the circumstances of his father's death. Everything he learns pulls him in the direction of the Old Mission Hotel, a setting reminiscent of The Overlook Hotel in Stephen King's The Shining, where he ultimately commits a murder at the end of the novel. These tropes are used as subterfuge, along with N's unreliability as a narrator, to keep the reader wondering what will happen next, what happened before the events of the novel, and how much N can be trusted...