Unfortunately, not like my previous review of Dead Men Don’t Ski, there were not a lot of wonderfully on-the-nose covers of this book to choose from. The one from Amazon is the same as my copy, which is lacking in over the top death melodrama. (Although this is the first time [out of all of two books of hers I read] that a big clue was printed on the cover.)
Another first is the narration perspective. Instead of following Detective Harry Tibbett on his investigations, we follow the poor sap being framed for murder (well, murders, plural, but the end because it can’t be a good detective story with just one body). And what a poor sap he is! I actually can’t recall his real name, but he was, rather unaffectionately, called Pudge. Pudge has the misfortune of being a rich man with absolutely no guile, compounded with the fact that he has ambitious and artistic friends.
Pudge and these friends form a production company. There’s the still-waters-run-deep director, the set designer (then leading man), who is married to the writer. They have the fading star leading man coupled with the flamboyant Italian ingenue. Leading Man takes a tumble and dies. later, it’s determined to be MURDER! (Was that really shocking to anyone?) A production assistant then quits and later commit suicide. OR IS IT MURDER?! (The answer is always yes, it’s murder.) Pudge rings his good friend at Scotland Yard, Detective Harry Tibbett, to ask him to keep the deaths out of the papers. Because Moyes really needs to drive home how upper class and out of touch Pudge is.
The change of pace on the narration style, coupled with the fact that for once, I didn’t peg the correct murderer, made this book a stand out from the usual offerings in the genre.
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