THE CLEMENTINE COMPLEX

A 30-year-old legal assistant musters the courage to talk to a woman in a pub and unknowingly inserts himself into a criminal plot.

The first novel by British comedian and memoirist Mortimer is a rom-com and mystery packaged in one. Our narrator, Gary Thorn, is alone in London with a dull job and no relationship prospects, but life gets more interesting when he goes for a reluctant drink with Brendan Jones, a private investigator who works closely with his law firm. While Brendan chats away, Gary is distracted by a woman sitting at the end of the bar with a book. When Brendan needs to leave after receiving an urgent call, Gary is free to ask the woman about her book, The Clementine Complex. This turns into a multihour conversation that ends abruptly—the woman disappears while Gary is fetching a drink. A defeated Gary is surprised to learn the next morning that Brendan has been found dead. Gary was likely the last person to see him alive. And what about the woman, whose name he never got? Is she in danger, too, or is she suspicious given that she left in a hurry? Gary has many questions, which he bounces off his neighbor Grace, who loves to gossip over meat pies. With heavy reliance on Gary’s rich interior dialogue, the book has little allegiance to the rule of “show, don’t tell.” Gary can’t resist the urge to figure out what’s transpired, so, with good intention and zero preparation, he plods his way through police stations and South London estates in search of answers, hoping to find the woman who's taken his fancy in the process. Gary’s quirky, self-aware nature is often endearing, especially in how much he subtly cares for others, but the surface-level humor Mortimer uses to give the story pep can be a tough sell, more awkward than funny. The narrative flow is derailed halfway through when our mystery woman becomes the narrator. Despite the whiplash, the fresh perspective—which is raw and humorless in a good way—is welcome. You’ll root for a happy ending despite the flaws.

Quirky, lighthearted, but easy to forget—it could have been a gem with more polish.