Overview
As the judges of a literary prize chip away at the author list,
someone else is chipping away at them....
When the chairperson of the prestigious Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize dies in suspicious circumstances, Robert Amiss (the token sane member of the judging panel) wastes no time in summoning Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck to step into the chair.
Speculation that a killer may be targeting the judges worries the baroness not in the slightest - it's the prospect of immersing herself in modern literature that fills her with dread. But noblesse must oblige, even when it means joining the ranks of the superciliati sitting in judgement of the literati.
With the baroness at the helm, the judges resume the task of whittling away at the short-list. But the killer, too, has resumed work and is whittling away at the judges one by one.
Synopsis
As the judges of a literary prize chip away at the author list, someone else is chipping away at them....
When the chairperson of the prestigious Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize dies in suspicious circumstances, Robert Amiss (the token sane member of the judging panel) wastes no time in summoning Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck to step into the chair.
Speculation that a killer may be targeting the judges worries the baroness not in the slightest - it's the prospect of immersing herself in modern literature that fills her with dread. But noblesse must oblige, even when it means joining the ranks of the superciliati sitting in judgement of the literati.
With the baroness at the helm, the judges resume the task of whittling away at the short-list. But the killer, too, has resumed work and is whittling away at the judges one by one.
About the Author:
Since 1993 Ruth has written seriously and/or frivolously for almost every national newspaper in the Republic of Ireland and the United Kingdom and appears frequently on radio and television in Ireland, the UK and on the BBC World Service. Ruth feels both Irish and English and greatly enjoys being part of both cultures. Three times a bridesmaid, she has been shortlisted by the Crime Writers Association for the John Creasey Award for the best first novel and twice for the Last Laugh award for the funniest crime novel of the year.
Mail on Sunday
Marvellously entertaining and iconoclastic series of satires on the British establishment. Ruth Dudley Edwards is a crime writer whom we should treasure -sharp, intelligent and gloriously politically incorrect.
Editorials
Sunday Times
In deplorable taste and wickedly funny, this, the tenth in the Robert Amiss series, will consolidate the author's reputation for scurrilous humour. Sprightly, saucy and ingenious.Daily Telegraph
Dudley Edwards is an equal opportunities satirist. She's rude to every persuasion.Marvellously entertaining and iconoclastic series of satires on the British establishment. Ruth Dudley Edwards is a crime writer whom we should treasure -sharp, intelligent and gloriously politically incorrect.
Like other venerable British institutions Ruth Dudley Edwards has gutted in previous mysteries, the literary cognoscenti (''the superciliati,'' she calls them) hold no terror for this ribald satirist. In Carnage in the Committee, she unleashes the hounds on prestigious, money-bearing awards like the Booker and the Whitbread, creating a fictional model rife with corruption and cronyism. Edwards's attack dog is the formidable Baroness Troutbeck (''Jack'' to her chums), mistress of St. Martha's, Cambridge University, a rudely outspoken tyrant whose mission is to restore common sense and Tory retro-values to a civilization self-destructing from political correctness.
— The New York Times
In her 10th comic Robert Amiss mystery, Dudley Edwards (The Anglo-Irish Murders) mercilessly skewers the book publishing world. The poisoning death of a peer, who served as the chairperson for the eccentric selection committee for a new British literary prize to outshine the Booker, causes a crisis. Panel member Amiss, an aspiring mystery novelist, recruits his friend, Baroness Jack Troutbeck, to fill the breach. The baroness, a politically incorrect bisexual who might remind some readers of John Dickson Carr's legendary Sir Henry Merrivale, quickly moves to impose her view that literature should be judged on its literary merits, steamrollering over her outraged colleagues who award points to entries based on the author's ethnic, economic and political backgrounds. As one judge after another meets an untimely end, the police place the remaining panel members under guard. Edwards is unabashedly cynical about publishing and the methods authors use to get ahead. The byplay between the baroness and her rivals is often amusing, though less acidly memorable than Robert Barnard's dialogue in works like Death of an Old Goat, which satirized academic politics. Those interested in solving the puzzle should be forewarned that there's no rational basis for anyone to deduce the identity of the killer, who ultimately mails a confession to the police. Agent, Jane Chelius. (Nov. 30) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.