The War of the Worlds Murder

This murder mystery in the author's "disaster" series is set against the background of one of the most well known fake disasters, Orson Welles' notorious War of the Worlds radio broadcast in October 1938, in which Welles and his colleagues were able to fool many Americans that a real Martian invasion of New Jersey had occurred. The novel was rather uneven, with all of the action and excitement in the second half, where the murder is revealed and the broadcast takes place (there is only a tenuous connection between them). The first half was really an opportunity for the author to set the cultural scene around the worlds of radio broadcasts and low brow detective fiction of the era, showing his extensive knowledge of the era, but perhaps show more rather over-indulgent in terms of the proportion of the book this takes up. Not a great novel, though the fake broadcast incident is a very interesting example of how artificial panic can be so easily whipped up. show less

This is an interesting concept for a series. Each volume deals with a particular ‘disaster’ and within the fictionalized rendering of the disaster, the author includes a murder mystery. This ‘disaster’ is Orson Welles’ Mercury Theater On the Air broadcast of H.G. Wells’ The War of the Worlds done as news broadcast as if it were happening in real time. The set up is a story within a story. A young mystery writer who is an enthusiast of Mickey Spillane pulp fiction runs into the writer of The Shadow magazine stories at a mystery conference. The writer tells him about the time Welles contacted him about working on a Shadow project and invited him to NYC to discuss it at the time he was getting ready to perform The War of the show more Worlds. It was a great set up and I learned a lot about what happened around the production. The murder mystery was a small part of the book. show less

Nice murder that isn't a murder. Orson Welles is the ultimate out-sized character, even for the thirties. Gives a nice view into the world of live radio.

Weaves a story told to him by Walter Gibson, comic book/pulp fiction writer who claims to have been at the presentation of the war of the worlds broadcast. Intermingled is a murder that points to Orson as the killer. Loved the story about Orson and the broadcast. the murder was actually a detraction from the story. overall a great read but not his better "disaster-fiction" novels.