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Product Description
Daily Mail
'[A] knowing and affectionate send-up of a classic whodunit ... it's undeniable fun.'
The Times
'A mystery as intriguing as those in the best of the stories he is spoofing.'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
31 of 33 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Adair has written a detective story that I think almost any writer from the Golden Age would have been proud to put their name to. Filled with numerous in-jokes and references to classic detective stories, "The Act of Roger Murgatroyd" nevertheless is not just for established fans of the genre. It's exactly what I was hoping it to be: a real brainbender of a whodunnit, with red herrings everywhere and every character looking like a legitimate suspect, and it's written in an easy, comical style. While Adair fills his novel with clichés, there is a self-awareness about his writing that forgives this. It's both parody and art, if that's possible.
The heroine, Evadne Mount, "Dowager Duchess of Crime", was hard to like at first, but I found that once the story got going she grew on me enormously. For all her flaws - vanity, roughness and a reluctance to hand the centre stage over to someone else - she was a character who I ended up finding incredibly easy to root for.
All in all, it's a charming, tongue-in-cheek novel - perhaps its one failing is that at 286 pages it's a little too short! It really is the most enjoyable book - the sort that makes you stay in bed all morning reading it! I'd highly recommend it to anyone, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequels.
The heroine, Evadne Mount, "Dowager Duchess of Crime", was hard to like at first, but I found that once the story got going she grew on me enormously. For all her flaws - vanity, roughness and a reluctance to hand the centre stage over to someone else - she was a character who I ended up finding incredibly easy to root for.
All in all, it's a charming, tongue-in-cheek novel - perhaps its one failing is that at 286 pages it's a little too short! It really is the most enjoyable book - the sort that makes you stay in bed all morning reading it! I'd highly recommend it to anyone, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequels.
22 of 24 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Reading this novel is almost like reading a dramatisation of the board game 'Cluedo. Set circa 1935, on Boxing Day, this is a really wonderful locked room mystery reflecting all the characters and devices of the 'golden age' of mystery writing and then subverting them all!
It is also hysterically funny. One of the charactes, an aptly named Evadne Mount, is a writer of whodunnits and throughout the novel she describes the plots of her novels (much to everyone's dismay!) My favourite was 'The Case of the Family Jewels' and I will leave to your imagination what the story was about.Other highlights from her canon include 'The Urinal of Futility' based on 'The Well of Lonliness'.
A great read, brilliant characers and a satisfying conclusion. Brilliant!
It is also hysterically funny. One of the charactes, an aptly named Evadne Mount, is a writer of whodunnits and throughout the novel she describes the plots of her novels (much to everyone's dismay!) My favourite was 'The Case of the Family Jewels' and I will leave to your imagination what the story was about.Other highlights from her canon include 'The Urinal of Futility' based on 'The Well of Lonliness'.
A great read, brilliant characers and a satisfying conclusion. Brilliant!
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you buy any book as a present this Xmas, consider this "entertainment" from Gilbert Adair. I found it a delight to read; intelligent, witty and fast paced. The title itself immediately reminds any crime story buff, of Agatha Christie's novel, "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". Any lover of this genre will thoroughly enjoy this book. It would be crass to call it a spoof novel, but it made me chuckle at times, and smile all the time. It brings so much together of the style of Christie, that will resonate loudly with all readers. Adair's style is fresh, vibrant, hilarious at times. His description of the book as an entertainment, is perfectly judged.
This would be an ideal novel to read on Boxing Day afternoon, ideally beside a log fire, with a snow storm raging outside.....lets not get carried away.
I read this in one sitting, so highly recommended
This would be an ideal novel to read on Boxing Day afternoon, ideally beside a log fire, with a snow storm raging outside.....lets not get carried away.
I read this in one sitting, so highly recommended
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Poor stuff
I should say at the beginning that this isn't the worst-written book I've ever read; it's pretty low on the list, though. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Dr. Peter J. King
smug nonsense
Oh Mr. Adair, how so in love with yourself you obviously are. For all your self-conscious posturing about "the golden age of detective fiction", you break several of the rules... Read more
Published 8 months ago by Mr. R. T. Bowes
Why?
A pastiche of the country house murder mystery. Entertaining, and well done. But what's the point, when there's a zillion Agatha Christies out there?
Published 8 months ago by Frootle
Adair is having a lot of fun and brings the reader with him.
This should be a poor parody. I have a feeling that the title at least is a play on The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, which I didn't know anything about. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Gavin
Yawn.
Although I read this when I first bought it, the next time I glanced at it on the coffee table I thought- Oh, I guess I never finished that? And started again. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Mrs. H. V. Aver
Only read for satire
Really looked forward to this book. Very disappointed as this is absolute rubbish - smug and way too knowing, using the 'classic' style as an excuse for lack of imagination. Read more
Published 20 months ago by lynne clifford
Great entertainment
I really enjoyed reading this story (although why it was praised as a witty homage to AG's 'The Murder of Roger Ackroyd' I don't know - there are other locked-room novels I could... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Bookworm
More than a parody
This is, of course, a clever parody of works from the so-called "golden age" of detective fiction, with an obvious nod to Agatha Christie's "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd". Read more
Published on 7 May 2010 by M. Joyce
Not sure how seriously to take this!
This is a pastiche of a thirties snowbound country house whodunnit, with a cast of stock characters doing stock things around the place. Read more
Published on 25 Mar 2010 by E. Potter
detective type
This book started well, but became to long winded and drawn out. The last few chapters coul;d have been written as one
Published on 19 Dec 2009 by Mrs E. O'Reilly
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