โ Scribed by Ruth Dudley Edwards
No coin nor oath required. For personal study only.
British satirist Edwards continues to skewer the Establishment with the misadventures of civil servant Robert Amiss and the keen deductions of his sleuthing partner, the irrepressible, irreverent Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck. Edwards, who's filleted the Foreign Office, clobbered a Cambridge college, jeered at gentlemen in their clubs, and defrocked the clergy in past books, now pulverizes the world of magazine publishing where to uphold traditions runs fatal risks.
Fictionalizing some of her own experiences as a journalist, Edwards creates the revered political rag The Wrangler, then sends in Amiss to sort out a hemorraghing cash flow, the succession plans of its most noble patron, a takeover bid from a strong-minded Australian woman (who has her eye on Jack), antiquated procedures that will have you rolling on the floor, preservation of a beautiful and historic London town house as company headquarters, and the inevitable little murder....
Amiss, long mired in inertia, is encouraged to break out of the civil service mentality, sort out his own emotional life, and Get On With It.
Truly a lovely, very funny, and provocative book that asks how we can balance what's worth keeping from our past with where we need to go to survive the future?
In his seventh outing, 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 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. Edwards's (Clubbed to Death, etc.) wit should be registered as a deadly weapon. This longtime contributor to the Economist takes no prisoners in yet another savagely funny satire on journalism, politics and antiquated manners.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Irish biographer and journalist Edwards has written the best in a series that's been targeting England's revered institutions. In this one, her bumbling sleuth Robert Amiss has been hired to modernize an inefficient, conservative, intellectual English journal that's modeled on the Economist. Progress here involves a shocking takeover bid, rancid office politics and a wacky murder. Amiss' sidekick in all this delicious hugger-mugger is, as usual, the loony, rude, bisexual and politically incorrect Baroness Jack Troutbeck. Publish and Be Murdered combines the eccentric characters of P.G. Wodehouse with the satire of Kingsley Amis.
Lev Raphael, Detroit Free Press
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