Eight Perfect Murders

Content Warning: This section contains references to sexual assault, addiction, and death by suicide, in addition to descriptions of murders.

Malcolm Kershaw is the unreliable narrator of Eight Perfect Murders. He claims the novel is his memoir, and he writes in the first person (using the pronouns I/me). Other characters perceive him as attractive and his hair is “prematurely white” (48). Malcolm is also called Mal: “my name, shortened, is Mal—French, of course, for bad” (66). His primary identity is based on his profession: “I was a bookseller [...] what I loved most of all was to read—that was my true calling” (12). He identifies with his labor at the bookstore and his consumption of books. A large portion of the novel is Malcolm retelling the plots of novels and reacting to them. His identity is formed around lists of books, such as his “Eight Perfect Murders” blog post. He also reads poetry, but “no longer [has] the stomach for contemporary mystery novels” (2). This is ironic since he co-owns and runs a mystery bookstore, Old Devils, in Boston.

Malcolm mentions that he is a widower early in the novel, but doesn’t admit to killing his wife, Claire, until the end of the novel.