The Colour of Bee Larkham’s Murder by Sarah J Harris takes a look at life through the eyes of someone quite unusual indeed. Jasper Wishart is a young autistic boy who sees things a bit different from even most autistics. Jasper has a rare gift called synesthesia, where sensory inputs are dual-wired. Jasper sees sound, each a unique combination of shape and colour. He also suffers from prosopagnosia, or ‘face-blindness’. He cannot recognise faces, not even his da’s, but he uses a variety of tricks to attempt to keep things straight. Jasper has witnessed a murder, but the only way he can describe it is through colour, which no one else can understand.

Bee Larkham moves in nearby, staying to clear out her deceased mother’s house. She loves music, and sets up to teach to earn income while she preps the house for sale. She also loves birds, and puts out feeders that draw parakeets, much to Jasper’s pleasure. He adores birds. Soon Bee has Jasper running errands in exchange for being allowed to watch nesting parakeets from her house. But what Jasper doesn’t know is the truth behind the errands he’s running, until one day when he accidentally walks in on Bee ‘getting busy’ with one of her students. When Jasper refuses to keep playing messenger, Bee retaliates with a horrible trick, one that may or may not have contributed to her death. Jasper then begins to hunt for clues, bringing to light not just the truth of Bee’s death, but of her past as well, bringing more than one criminal to justice. And from it all, Jasper finds a friend in a most unlikely person.

Jasper is portrayed well. The unique mix of autism, prosopagnosia, and synesthesia made him quite the interesting character. I can’t even imagine his levels of frustration. Autism alone can make communication difficult, but add in a completely foreign way of viewing the world, and the frustration quadruples. I have a friend with synesthesia, and he said those descriptions were accurate. Since the story is told first person from Jasper’s POV, we get a unique perspective. I love that Jasper uses his gift to create beautiful abstract paintings that actually do tell stories that he can read.

I can only imagine his da’s frustrations too. Jasper’s ma was a synesthete, though not autistic. When she passed from illness, Jasper’s soldier father was recalled. His father tries to understand his son, but he doesn’t, not fully, and gets aggravated with Jasper’s quirks and proclivities at times. One of these quirks includes calling 999 often, and for things the police wouldn’t normally handle. Yet, despite the frustrations, his father never once seems to think Jasper needs to be placed in a facility. He does the best he can, and clearly loves his son. He even always dresses the same so Jasper can easily recognise him.

Highly recommended if you enjoy books such as The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time.

***Many thanks to Netgalley and Touchstone for providing an egalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.