A lyrical, queer sci-fi retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet as a locked-room thriller
A Twenty-First Century Hamlet.
Hayden Lichfield’s life is ripped apart when he finds his father murdered in their lab, and the camera logs erased. The killer can only have been after one thing: the Sisyphus Formula the two of them developed together, which might one day reverse death itself. Hoping to lure the killer into the open, Hayden steals the research. In the process, he uncovers a recording his father made in the days before his death, and a dying wish: Avenge me…
With the lab on lockdown, Hayden is trapped with four other people—his uncle Charles, lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen, research intern Felicia Xia and their head of security, Felicia’s father Paul—one of whom must be the killer. His only sure ally is the lab’s resident artificial intelligence, Horatio, who has been his dear friend and companion since its creation. With his world collapsing, Hayden must navigate the building’s secrets, uncover his father’s lies, and push the boundaries of sanity in the pursuit of revenge.
- Title: The Death I Gave Him
- Author: Em X. Liu
- Publisher: Rebellion Publishing
- Publication Date: September 12, 2023
- Genre: Sci-Fi, Retelling
- Source: Digital ARC via Netgalley / Publishers in exchange for an honest review)
- Targeted Age Range: Adult
- Content Warnings: blood, death, descriptions of a dead body, medical procedures, discussions of mortality, allusions to a past suicide attempt (chapter 7, an on the page occurrence is warned for in the text of the novel), depictions of self harm, murder, physical violence, guns and gun related injuries, mentions of suicide and suicidal thoughts, gore
- Rating: ★★★★★
It’s been well established by now that if you say a book is a Shakespeare retelling, I will run to read it. Add “locked-room thriller” to that and it’ll quickly become my most anticipated read of the year. Right when I heard about Em X. Liu’s debut The Death I Gave Him I knew that this book would feel tailor made for me, and I was right.
The Death I Gave Him is the story of Hayden Litchfield and his quest for revenge after he discovers his father — Dr. Graham Litchfield — dead in his personal lab. When Hayden finds a video his father made in the case of his premature death, it confirms Hayden’s worst fear, that his father had been murdered. His father’s dying wish is for Hayden to avenge him, and he intends to do so. Elsinore Labs is now in lock-down, and aside from the lab’s artificial intelligence, Horatio, Hayden is trapped with four other people, all of whom are suspects — his uncle Charles, his ex-girlfriend and research intern Felicia Xia, the lab’s head of security and Felicia’s father Paul Xia, and lab technician Gabriel Rasmussen. All had the means and opportunity to murder Dr. Litchfield and gain access to the Sisyphus Formula Hayden and his father developed. A formula that could one day bring someone back from the dead, but the question is, who would do it? Now, in the throes of grief and madness, Hayden is determined to discover the truth, no matter the cost.
Truthfully, I am having a hard time putting into words what reading this book was like. From the start, Liu’s lush prose draws you in and holds you close until the very last line. Similarly to Shakespeare himself, I think that this book is one that you’ll want to read multiple times to really catch everything that’s going on. In fact, before I even finished the book I ordered my copy and started thinking about what I want to keep an eye on during my next reread, and what I’ll focus on when annotating.
As I’m not a big sci-fi reader I was a little worried that I would have a difficult time getting into The Death I Gave Him — depending on how heavy it was on the science fiction elements — but this was just the right amount of sci-fi for me! It wasn’t too hard to get into the correct mindset for the sci-fi aspects, but I’m not too proud to admit that there were times where I didn’t feel smart enough for this book considering all of my medical knowledge comes from watching Grey’s Anatomy…but that didn’t bother me at all, since I was intrigued the entire time.
I had no idea that it was a book within a book, and that it was also mixed media, and we know that I am a sucker for both of those things! I loved that there were different perspectives throughout the book as well. I thought it was great that we got chapters from Hayden and Felicia’s POVs, interview and phone call transcripts, and the chapters from the POV of Horatio were so clever and interesting — it really brought Horatio to life. Additionally, I loved the quotes from articles written about that night and the footnotes (I do love footnotes!). All of these things added to the reading experience.
Some of the themes that Hamlet focuses on are madness, doubt, revenge, uncertainty, mortality, and power, and Liu did a great job of making those themes central to this story. The essence of Hamlet was prevalent throughout the entire book, which in my mind, makes a great retelling. What I really appreciated about this retelling was that we not only got these themes from Hayden’s perspective, but we also got it from the perspectives of Felicia and Horatio. As so much of Hamlet is from Hamlet and Claudius’ perspectives, I appreciated that this retelling not only gave us new perspectives, but that it also showed how the death of Hayden’s father and the subsequent events impacted everyone that knew him.
Hamlet is such a complex play, both in plot and character, and Liu did a great job recreating that. I was especially impressed with the characterization that Liu gave Felicia, Ophelia’s counterpoint. I’ve always had a deep love of Ophelia, but she’s not given much to work with in Hamlet, and most of what we know about her is from what others have said (Liu makes a nod to this that I thought was very cleverly done). The Death I Gave Him Liu gives Felicia the voice that Ophelia was denied. We got multiple chapters that are excerpts from an essay that she had written about that night, allowing the readers to see into her head and follow her thought process. These were some of my favorite parts of the story, and I felt very connected to Felicia, just as I feel very connected to Ophelia.
I have so many more thoughts on The Death I Gave Him, but can’t go into them without spoiling the entire book, so all I can say is, if you’re a fan of Hamlet, I cannot recommend this book more highly!
Links for The Death I Gave Him: Goodreads | TheStoryGraph | Bookshop
