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Robert Amiss, lapsed civil servant, is approached by Lord Papworth, owner of the Wrangler, to step in as business manager for the august journal and do something about its steady drain on his lordship's finances. The magazine's editor, Willie Lambie Crump, and his staff are firmly mired in the 1950s, technologically speaking; ideologically, the journal has always been strongly conservative. Prodded by Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck, his rather menacing guardian angel, Amiss takes on the job and show more soon has his hands full trying to further the journal's progress toward the latter half of the 20th century without unduly upsetting the staff. When the political editor, Henry Potbury, is found dead under odd circumstances and Crump is murdered, Amiss discovers once again that trying to keep a job can be a lethal occupation. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
Tedious. What kind of murder mystery doesn't kill anyone until more than a third of the way in? To make matters worse, the first third is filled solely with smug political posturing. Apparently Ms. Edwards is a renowned satirist - I'm glad for those who have the patience to wade through this boring drivel, but then, I'm American...
murders on staff of eccentric political paper in England
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Author Information
28+ Works 1,541 Members
Ruth Dudley Edwards (born 24 May 1944, in Dublin, Ireland) is an Irish historian, a crime novelist, a journalist and a broadcaster, in both Ireland and in the United Kingdom. Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin and educated at University College Dublin, Girton College, Cambridge and Wolfson College, Cambridge. Her nonfiction books include An show more Atlas of Irish History, James Connolly, Victor Gollancz: A Biography (winner of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize), The Pursuit of Reason: The Economist 1843-1993, and The Faithful Tribe: An Intimate Portrait of the Loyal Institutions. Also a crime fiction writer, her novels include: Corridors of Death, The Saint Valentine's Day Murders, The English School of Murder, and Clubbed to Death. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Some Editions
Series
Common Knowledge
- Original publication date
- 1998
- People/Characters
- Robert Amiss; Baroness Ida "Jack" Troutbeck
- Important places
- London, England, UK
- Dedication
- To Paul, friend and pedant, and, of course, as usual, to John.
- First words
- "Bertie Ormerod says you're a tactful sort of fellow."
- Quotations
- Ricketts continued his task of laboriously counting the contents of a carton of pencils.... "I keep a very tight eye indeed on my ladies' and gentlemen's requisites. There's paper and there's pencils and then there's steel pe... (show all)ns -- though that's not a difficulty since I'm the only one who uses them now. We had a bit of a to-do a long time back about biros. The last editor didn't hold with them. Said it was an affront to decency to have them in the building. Fountain pens or steel pens only, he decreed. Or pencils, of course. But then, sir, you know how it is. It's called progress, I suppose. We had to give in in the end, just like with those machines the typewriting ladies use."
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Don't worry," said the baroness. "I have the very thing."
Classifications
Statistics
- Members
- 108
- Popularity
- 299,397
- Reviews
- 2
- Rating
- (3.50)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 2
