The Act of Roger Murgatroyd
Gilbert Adair Faber and Faber (2006)
I personally found this homage/parody/pastiche of the murder-in-the-isolated-countryhouse witty, droll and wry. In other hands it would have be leaden, heavy-handed.
If you want to you can dip “below” the surface, beneath the “metafictional” asides there’s stuff about unreliable narrators, deconstruction etc. The climax is extremely reminiscent of Adair’s early “The Death of the Author” (that’s not a bad thing).
See alsoAgatha Christie’s The Murder of Roger Ackroyd
Michael Dibdin on who wrote his own Agatha Chritise-based book, really did NOT like this book
“Heck, it’s smart and self-referential! You gotta give the guy that.”
“Half-smart and immensely self-reverential. But frankly, my dear, I didn’t give a d–n.”
Ouch.
Me, I’m gonna read the second and third books in the trilogy in the spirit that (I think) they were written – as fritterature…
