Murder at Crime Manor

"This verges into parody—taking very established, familiar archetypes, spinning them around, playing them around and both celebrating gags that you will recognise then doubling down and spinning them again in a new way. So, yes, if you’ve ever read or watched an Agatha Christie, or if you’ve ever read any Wodehouse.. well, I’m not saying he’s in Wodehouse’s league, because, frankly, nobody is. But he’s got some of that spirit and he plays with the idea of what’s funny, satirises both the literary form and the political subjects within the story. It’s very appealing. I read it straight after Carlotta , and they should almost be read as companion pieces because they are so different, but in their different ways so pleasurable. And a bit like India Knight, Fergus Craig takes period language and gives it a contemporary spin, which is in itself rather clever. Sometimes the jokes are even in the vocabulary. Sometimes people say that Casablanca is the greatest movie of all time, but also that it’s the greatest B movie. Well, this is like that—it’s a great popular fiction book that plays with the idea of popular fiction, plays with the idea of plot. Can a plot be funny? Yes, it can actually. There’s lots to love about this book: it’s a light read, and a very, very entertaining one."