posted on 14 May 2023

The Murderer’s Ape by Jakob Wegelius

Originally written in Swedish and expertly translated by Peter Graves, The Murderer’s Ape has become something of a young adult cult classic since its publication in 2017. This English language edition follows three years after its original release in 2014 and weighs in at a substantial 580 pages and includes several pages of illustrations at the the beginning of the book which introduces us to the cast of main characters - which in a story that takes its central character on a series of convoluted voyages across large parts of the globe, turns out to be a valuable aid to giving some of the key actors a visually recognisable personality.

Set in the 1920s, this is, in many ways, an adventure story of the kind that was common enough at this time for tales of derring-do. But The Murderer’s Ape is lifted from simple pastiche by the creation of a truly remarkable central character - Sally Jones. This is not, as you might reasonably think, because Wegelius has created a strong female lead but because Sally Jones is a gorilla.

But, of course, not any old gorilla. Sally Jones (never just Sally, always Sally Jones) is able to understand humans, to read and to write and, ultimately, to narrate this story, which she produces on a typewriter. The one thing Sally Jones can’t do is to speak but she has plenty of other ways of making herself understood.

Saved twice from what seemed certain death by ship's engineer, Henry Koskela, the two friends go into partnership running a small boat doing haulage jobs with Henry as captain and Sally Jones as his more than able engineer. But as we join the story, life for both of them is about to be turned upside down when they accept a rather suspicious contract to ship some boxes of ‘tiles’ - which, needless to say, turn out to be anything but what they expected.

In the immediate fallout from this inauspicious job, Henry finds himself accused of deliberately drowning one of the crooks who has set them up and is arrested and convicted of murder. Sally Jones goes on the run to avoid capture until she is taken in by the kindly (and we discover later, the talented) Ana Molina and the splendid accordion-maker, Luigi Fadardo. In the relative safety of their care, Sally Jones flourishes and begins to show just what an extraordinary creature she is.

Henry Koskela remains in prison but the newly united three friends never give up hope of establishing his innocence and the rest of the book is the story of that battle for justice. Along the way Sally Jones, Ana and Luigi will meet corrupt police, Ana will find fame and Sally Jones will end up in India with the Maharaja of Bhupur - but I’m not going to say any more about how all this happens or works out in the end because it would be the most enormous spoiler.

There’s no doubt that this is a daring attempt to breathe new life into an old genre and, on the whole, it’s done with elan. For me, it was a hundred pages too long and a bit of judicious editing would have helped enormously. Sometimes less is more. But having said that, I can easily see how good readers age 11 and above would find themselves fully immersed in the world he creates - and they will undoubtedly love Sally Jones.

It’s perhaps a good idea to end with some remarks made by Philip Pullman - a writer that knows about constructing fictional worlds of the unexpected:

‘I don’t know when I last read a book with such pure and unalloyed pleasure. It’s ingenious, it’s moving, it’s charming, it’s beautiful, it’s exciting, and most importantly the characters and people I feel I know like old friends.’

The book is easily available in paperback but if you can find (and afford) the hardback, I’d go for that because 580 pages is not easy to manage in a paperback edition and the production values of the hardback are really excellent.

 

Terry Potter

May 2023