The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man

I have read this steaming pile of a book from cover to cover so that you don't have to. The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man billed itself as taking "black comedy to philosophical heights" but it does nothing of the sort. Rather, it is an attempt at satirical humor by an author whose age, social prejudices, and sexual fantasies are embarrassingly on display throughout.

Love Potion Murders is told from the POV of sixty-year-old Norman de Ratour, or to rephrase that in the annoyingly affected style Alcorn adopts for his main character, "Is narrated in the lyrical yet perhaps, one fears, slightly outmoded cadences of one Norman de Ratour, sexagenarian." Now, be it brain candy like The Somnambulist or serious fare like Jonathan show more Strange & Mr Norrell, I am a fan of novels that mimic pseudo-Dickensian florid prose--provided it's done well. Unfortunately, it's mostly just ponderous in this case, although there are a few nice turns of phrase here and there.

Now let's move on to the "humor." One imagines Alcorn believes his narrator's takes (or are those Alcorn's takes?) on such sacred cows as racial and sexual sensitivity, and modern phenomena such as lawyers and youth culture are scathing and incisive, but they're nothing of the sort. Oh look, here's a rapacious Jewish lawyer, ready to sue at the drop of a hat! And haha, would you look at that rabid feminist with her shaved head, foaming at the mouth about how everything is a tool of the patriarchy trying to repress her!

These two-dimensional stereotypes are no longer inherently funny and say nothing new about the groups they purport to parody. (Alcorn might want to try watching an episode or two of Family Guy to learn how to effectively skewer such people.) Furthermore, Alcorn/de Ratour's beef mainly seems to hinge on how tiresome it is for older white male Christians that young, non-white, non-male, non-Christians keep insisting that they be listened to. Or to put it another way, one gets the impression upon reading Love Potions that Alcorn/de Ratour doesn't have any problem at all with black people...just those "annoying" ones that have to be so loud about racial prejudice. It's also notable that Christianity and horny old men are the only two groups spared the "sting" of Alcorn/de Ratour's "biting" insights.

As for language: Alcorn has an annoying habit of giving his characters "clever" J.K. Rowling-esque names, except that anyone with a decent vocabulary will immediately know what role those characters are doomed to play in the narrative. (Sixpak Shakur? Really?) Also, it behooves anyone wishing to mock the extremes of youth slang to first understand how youth slang is used. Alcorn does not, which means those annoying "likes" and "dudes" he thinks he's parodying pop up in all the wrong places in his dialogue, and instead of pointing out how ridiculous such verbal tics are the joke is on him--the old man who thinks he's being funny but doesn't, like, you know, get it.

And then there's Alcorn's truly bizarre sexual fantasies. To whit: you are a sixty-year-old man. Your beloved wife, the love of your life, is dying of cancer. Do you respond by a) descending into grief and depression or b) lusting uncontrollably after her twenty-something daughter by a previous marriage, with whom you consummate a sexual relationship a few days after your wife's death? Or how about this: you are a woman dying of cancer. Do you a) tell your sixty-year-old husband you love him and to be strong, or b) tell him to consummate a sexual relationship with your twenty-year-old daughter by previous husband?

If you chose "a," you're like most people. If you chose "b," you're Alcorn, and congratulations, your readership now knows far more about what springs your junk than they're comfortable with. I suppose there's a slim chance Alcorn means for this to be as disturbing as it is, but one rather gets the impression readers are supposed to cheer for Alcorn/de Ratour as he bones his four-decades-younger stepdaughter--I mean, gets the girl in the end.

Avoid this piece of crap like the plague. Life is too short. show less

What a charming book! It's not every author who can successfully combine academic politics, cannibalism, love drugs, and murder, but Alcorn succeeds. He writes like a snarky Conan Doyle (and I mean that in the best possible way.) It's been a while since I read something that combines such an interesting plot with such entertaining prose. I'll be on the lookout for more books by this author.

My first impression of this book was that the language was, for lack of a better word, annoying. The author seemed to fall into the trap of using big words just because he knew them, which simply made the prose sound dated and stuffy. My sense of annoyance eased a little bit, however, once I became better acquainted with the protagonist and first-person narrator, Norman de Ratour. He is the essence of old-fashioned trying to stay contemporary. Although his language was bothersome at first, he quickly becomes more endearing than annoying, more like a grandfather figure than one of those long-winded old men who love nothing more than to hear themselves speak. However, aside from that, I didn't find this book very original. Not generally a show more fan of mysteries anyway, I found very little to truly enjoy. Most of the characters are unconvincing in their performances and agendas, and the relationships are overly fluid and very superficial. The story as a whole was simply not believable, and suspension of disbelief didn't kick in at all. It's presented as something that could happen in our world, and yet somehow it just doesn't fit. show less

OK, I won't generally read other reviews before I write my own, but I had to double check that I wasn't the only person who had troubles with the book. I had quite the love/hate relationship with this book. When the story was moving, I found it witty and the mystery had some level of uniqueness to it, but when the book was slow, it was agonizingly slow, to the point where on more than one occasion I had to drag myself through it and convince myself not to put it down for good. However, I can say that I might have to see if I can come across the first book in the series some time, but only if there is absolutely nothing on the TBR pile that is catching my interest.

Warning: contains spoilers for the prequel, Murders in the Mystery of Man.

As this second Norman de Ratour mystery begins, we see Norman reaping the rewards of his performance in the previous volume, now two years past. He is now the Director of the Museum of Man, and he is married to his long-lost love, Elsbeth. All should be peachy keen in Norman's world, but trouble seeps in on all fronts. Wainscott University persists in trying to absorb the museum, the abominable Malachi Morin still haunts his life, and Norman's beloved Elsbeth is dying of cancer.

On top of his ongoing problems, Norman finds out that two researchers have been found dead in a museum restroom,
locked in the most intimate of positions. Norman must help the police decide show more that their deaths were a murder, and solve the crime, while he deals with annoying representatives
of the press and all of his personal issues, including a weird step-daughter who seems quite interested in him in a surprising way.

As might be expected after his adventures in the preceding volume, Norman is not quite the querulous wimp that he used to be. Nor does Alcorn give us the hilarious but eventually tedious proceedings of academic committees that he lampooned in the prequel. He retains his love of silly names, such as the Onoyoko Foundation and the Yomama tribe of cannibals. Much of the humor in this volume derives from Norman's newfound capability for lust.

As was the case in the first NdR mystery, the whodunnit aspect of the story is unremarkable. It is difficult for the reader to "solve" the case along with Norman; he meanders toward the solution without a lot of visible research or deduction. It's almost as though the mystery is just something that happened while the author was telling us Norman's story. show less

Based on the ratings this book received, I wonder if I'm the only one who liked it?

I received my copy as part of the Early Reviewers program and did not read the novel that precedes it.

This is a book about dark humor and dark comedy. Two professors are found dead, having apparently boffed each other to death in the research lab of the museum of man. What follows is a mystery full of odd connections, through a meandering bumbling investigation by our erstwhile hero Norman De Ratour.

The book takes on academia, and I think you really have to be familiar with that institution to appreciate it. I liked the caricatures of professors and administrators, and this little world of Norman's.

What I disliked strongly was the entire subplot involving show more Norman's "stepdaughter" Diantha. Diantha is stupid, flighty, promiscuous, annoying, and really, had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The hero falls for her merely because she's the splitting image of her mother. And of course, as any heroine who's too stupid to live, she has to get herself in mortal danger at the end so Norman can save her.

Other than that, I appreciated the dark comedy of this book, though I probably won't be picking up anything else of the author's any time soon. show less

I'm still deciding how I feel about this book: One the one hand, I really liked Norman - talk about a complex/conflicted person! He is so obviously intelligent, but incredibly naive and too often distracted by his glands. The museum politics and the players are hilarious with their own little agendas, especially the discussions during their "meetings". Though intended as satirical, I'm sure that the personalities aren't too far from reality in many similar institutions.

One the other hand, I kept getting lost in the sometimes awkward (to me, at least) prose, having to re-read passages. So many characters are thrown in, as if I already know them, which of course, means that they were introduced in the first book (?) His step-daughter, show more Dianthus is just trashy, and THAT whole situation - anyway, this work is not for the squeamish or prudish. Also, the conclusion seemed to rush at me - here was a serious situation and there were only a few more pages remaining...

The entire premise - the mystery, the plot - is compelling, but sometimes gets lost in Norman's personal life (I don't want to elaborate here and risk a spoiler).

Still, I am interested enough that I'm going to hunt down the first of the series. Maybe then this one will flow more easily for me. show less