INTO THE SWINE

An artist attempts to solve the riddle of a mysterious death after being mistaken for an acclaimed author in Steele’s time-shifting SF mystery.

Vincent Wainwright, an artist from San Francisco, visiting a bookstore in downtown Seldon, Pennsylvania, purchases a carefully curated selection of novels. As he prepares to drive away from the bookstore, he realizes that he has mistaken someone else’s car for his own. In that split second, Seldon changes: The community is familiar, but brighter and more beautiful. When a well-dressed woman mistakes Vincent for a recently deceased man named Daniel Wainwright, he impulsively claims he’s Daniel’s twin brother. Soon, Vincent is living in Daniel’s elegant apartment and enjoying a lavish lifestyle funded by Daniel’s success as an author. Daniel died under questionable circumstances, and Vincent enlists the help of aspiring journalist (and Daniel’s romantic interest) Madeleine Basse to unlock the mystery of Daniel’s death. Vincent also wants to discover more about this new Seldon; he learns that he is now in the year 2275 in a society shaped by eugenics and a rigid caste system. As Vincent interviews Daniel’s friends, lovers, and associates, his search for the truth takes him and Madeleine down a treacherous path. Steele’s tale is a genre-bending SF mystery with an intriguing premise and a complex protagonist; the strongest aspects of the novel are the character of Daniel Wainwright and the mystery surrounding his death. Vincent Wainwright is also a dynamic presence throughout the narrative, and the author deftly reveals the ways in which his complicated association with the late Daniel mirrors the relationship he had with his real brother. But while the story’s premise is striking, the execution is murky with prose that is florid and elliptical (“Vincent took pity and thought to change his subject. Wondering if it might lead to some more genial accord by his latency to this interrogation”). That said, the ending is haunting.

A thought-provoking, if uneven, time-travel mystery.