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Dead Clever (Hardcover)

by Scarlett Thomas (Author)
3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Hardcover: 308 pages
  • Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd (1 Oct 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0340718331
  • ISBN-13: 978-0340718339
  • Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 1,169,599 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #26 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > T > Thomas, Scarlett

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Product Description

Product Description

Lilly Pascale's part-time job at a university lands her right in a murder enquiry, when a girl is been found raped and headless. Lilly can't help getting involved and soon she is following a trail of bizarre clues and codes that lead her into a realm of drugs and something unimaginably sinister.


From the Publisher

Why I was grabbed by Scarlett Thomas's arresting new voice
The minute I first read Scarlett Thomas's manuscript, I knew I'd found something special. DEAD CLEVER is different; it's in a traditional crime genre, but our detective heroine is 25-year-old Lily Pascale, a literature lecturer who takes no prisoners. She's utterly modern, unshockable and unashamedly clever. Then there's the mystery itself - twisting, complex and gripping. And it could only happen in the nineties. Scarlett has since followed DEAD CLEVER with two more excellent mysteries starring Lily Pascale, IN YOUR FACE and SEASIDE. She's entrancing new fans every day with her sharp writing and incredible imagination (how does she think of those plots!). Read one and find out why Scarlett Thomas is a name to watch. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Customer Reviews

10 Reviews
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 (1)
2 star:
 (2)
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Average Customer Review
3.8 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars the other books are better, 2 Jun 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Dead Clever (New English library) (Paperback)
I have to say, Dead Clever nearly put me off Scarlett Thomas, but I'm glad it didn't. The heroine, Lily Pascale, is a lecturer in crime fiction. Great idea for a crime novel. But there's no use at all made of it. You kind of wonder why Thomas gave her that job- maybe she intended to use it but changed her mind? The denouement is 100% preposterous, and really quite hard to care about. The standard stakes-upping technique of putting someone the protagonist's close to in danger is used, but you know so little about the character in question that it just feels manipulative and cheap.

Lily's return to the place she grew up is really evocative, and her 'internal landscape' is well drawn, I guess, but this book seems a bit like it's attempting to buck the genre of crime fiction by being clever, and missing all its good points.

However, Thomas's second and third Lily Pascale books are *superb*

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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, cool, misunderstood, 24 Nov 2000
By A Customer
This review is from: Dead Clever (New English library) (Paperback)
I can see why this book has a couple of bad reviews - it's a love it or hate it kind of a thing. If you are looking for a run of the mill crime novel, you won't find what you're looking for here. Dead Clever is a very cool book, an obvious spoof of both the crime and b-movie genres - it even has a mad scientist. I don't know what Scarlett Thomas intended, but from what I can make out, she seems to be very aware of the conventions she's disrupting, and has just had a right laugh writing this. It does come over as a bit first-novelly, and she was quite young when she wrote it. I'm just desperately waiting for Bright Young Things to come out. It's Scarlett Thomas's first serious non-crime book, apparently, and I've read the first couple of chapters on her website... It's FANTASTIC. Anyway, if you're looking for the best book in the Lily Pascal series, read Seaside. But if you're looking for a well written, sideways-take on the crime/horror genre, read this.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Dead Boring!, 31 Dec 2008
By still searching (MK UK) - See all my reviews
  
This review is from: Dead Clever (Lily Pascale Mysteries) (Paperback)
Quite ironic really considering the title of this distinctly routine piece; it wasn't dead clever to publish this and it must be wondered if Thomas regrets it now considering the outstanding Popco and The End of Mr Y rather like some actors have regretted appearing in certain films at the start of their careers. Let me put it this way, thank God I read The End of Mr Y first; if Dead Clever had been my introduction to Thomas' work it would have been my first and last. I won't bother giving yet another synopsis of the story, such as it is. Suffice to say that she does the English higher education system no favours at all: I mean can you really phone up, have a 2 minute chat and get a lectureship in a UK university and on the strength of a few weeks part time work, during which you do virtually no preparation, very little real teaching, no marking, give no tutorials and spend most of your time sleuthing around the `Devon drug scene', be rewarded by being made head of department?

Do yourselves a favour - skip this lightweight fluff and move straight on to either of the later novels. And to think some reviewers found it `brilliant'; the mind really does boggle!
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Clever and interesting...
Bought this after reading The End of Mr Y and PopCo. All very enjoyable in different ways. I'd recommend Scarlett Thomas generally.
Published 26 days ago by Dr. David C. Aldridge

2.0 out of 5 stars Cosy but not hip
Lily, the amateur detective hero, arrives in Devon and gets a job via her mum (who works there) at a local university, where a murder has just happened. Read more
Published on 21 Nov 2001 by Bob Ventos

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant
This is a brilliant crime novel. There are too many detective novels about with aged grumpy middle-aged policeman in macs, it was refreshing to read about Lily, a sexy young and... Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2001

1.0 out of 5 stars Wow! What a terrible book
I'm always on the lookout for new crime writers and I picked this up with some hope, but my goodness is it ever awful. Read more
Published on 19 Nov 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars A truly first-rate crime novel!
Scarlett Thomas' 'Dead Clever' is one of the best books I have come across in recent years. The characters are utterly believable, the plot extremely clever, and the setting a... Read more
Published on 13 Aug 2000

5.0 out of 5 stars A grown up Nancy Drew Novel with a modern edge
I am not normally a huge fan of crime novels, but I really enjoyed this. I think it's because it's so easy to like and relate to Lily - she's a great role model for any... Read more
Published on 29 Mar 2000 by rach@8lismore.freeserve.co.uk

5.0 out of 5 stars A finely knitted cunning plot
Dead Clever is a fine modern crime novel. Scarlett Thomas has created in Lily Pasquale the amateur detective that we would all like to be. Read more
Published on 31 Jan 2000

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