#simon lelic

By Simon Lelic

a book review

(!Spoilers! duh)

Recently I read “Rupture”. It’s a book that’s quite easy to get through, I finished it in two days. We accompany Inspector Lucia, a murder investigator at the London police force and every second chapter we get to read the manuscripts of the interrogations she conducts. Notably tho we only ever get to see what people respond, never are Lucia’s words part of what’s written nor are the interviewed peoples behaviors ever described.

What case is our Inspector working on?

A school shooting occurred. Three children and a teacher end up dead. The massacre ends due to the shooters suicide on scene. His name was Samuel Szajkowski, he was a teacher at the school.

The big question plaguing everyone now is why?

That is Lucia’s job to find out. She discovers how Mr. Szajkowski was bullied. Bullied by the principal, by other teachers and even his 15 year old students. She discovers how another student at the same school suffers similarly and she herself has to fight against disgusting colleagues, trying to unsettle, scare and hurt her.

It’s clear that the central theme of the book is bullying. It asks questions whether it is okay to feel sympathy for a victim of bullying who himself commits horrible crimes as a result. Is it preventable? Who could prevent it? Is it maybe even justified?

In the end we don’t rly know much more than in the beginning. The bullied child ends up committing suicide after getting out of the hospital (after an attack from his bullies). Lucia leaves the workplace she was (sexually) assaulted at. By the end of the book, we don’t rly get a proper resolution. Lucia does not stand up to her bullies in a satisfying way, she does not file complaints, she never tries to get help, she stays a silent victim. She does try to fight back verbally sometimes, in a pretty ineffective way unfortunately. The dead child’s parents do file a case against the school, however, we barely get to know anything about it. The public view of Mr. Szajkowski (were his actions preventable and/or understandable or was he just a mad man who committed a school shooting bc he was crazy and felt like it?) stays a mystery to the reader.

Another thing that bothered me personally was how there seemed to be a lot of backstory, especially concerning Lucia’s past, but it never getting properly explained. I suspected it might have been due to the book being part of a series but now imagine my surprise when I found out that this was the authors first book.

All in all not a very exciting read. It comes down to people recounting past events of how Mr. Szajkowski was and things done to him and Lucia not doing much except for visiting the school a lot and having trouble at work. Unfortunately.

Have you read this book? What did you think?