Gilbert dunnit
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The story opens in a snowbound country house located on the edge of Dartmoor on Boxing Day 1935. The body of Raymond Gentry, an effete gossip columnist, has been found in the attic of ffolkes Manor. The attic door was locked from the inside and the sole window has solid iron bars which permit no access. All the assembled guests have their reasons for wanting him dead and so they are all suspects for the crime. A retired police officer who lives a short distance from the manor is drafted in to undertake the investigation. Also in residence is Evadne Mount, renowned crime writer who relishes the opportunity to not only take on the role of amateur sleuth in a reflection of her own invented character Alexis Baddeley, but to also draw out the amusing implications of such a scenario. The other guests include the vicar and his wife, the local doctor and his wife, a grand theatrical dame and the lord of the manor, his wife, his daughter and the daughter's hapless male friend. Plus of course a supporting cast of butlers and cooks and so on. The stage is set for a classic who, and how, dunnit. Along the way the author has great fun deploying all the expected devices of the classic era detective mystery.
In his cheeky and highly enjoyable 'entertainment', Gilbert Adair puts into practice some of the points about murder mystery novels, specifically those by Agatha Christie, which he made in his short essay A Mysterious Affair of Style (in his book Myths and Memories). This persuasively argues that there are only really two characters involved in any such book; the author and the reader. The author concealing clues and using red herrings to confound the reader; the reader attempting to unpick the significant from the insignificant and work out who the murderer is before his or her identity is revealed by Poirot or Miss Marple (or in this instance Evadne Mount). In effect author and reader are engaged in a kind of coital act, each alert to the other's tricks and devices in attempt to tease each other to a mutually satisfyng conclusion.
Adair's knowingness is finely judged and adroitly managed. By using Evadne Mount as his mouthpiece, he is able to make amusing observations about the tropes and tricks of crime writing without being too irritatingly arch or post modernly self satisfied. For example, Mount's delicious description of the requirement for cold and freezing weather to add to the feeling of cosiness and security to those `trapped' indoors works within the context of the story but also has a recognisable kinship to Adair's essays of cultural criticism in Surfing the Zeitgeist and The Postmodernist always Rings Twice.
Another even more overt example is where Mount notes how she edits or expands passages towards the end of her books to ensure that the revelation of the murderer's name appears over the page so that the reader does not inadvertently catch sight of it before they reach the relevant passage. This is surely the kind of thing all fans of crime novels have always contemplated. Adair is of course compelled to follow her example and does so with aplomb; certainly I was not up to the task of working out who the perpetrator was nor how the crime was committed.
The playful, parodic approach extends to the use of words and phrases which once were once innocent but are now loaded with different meanings and the fact that many of the characters voice very politically incorrect views about the working class and foreigners. The book therefore replicates not only the virtues and pleasures of the work of classic crime era novelists but also some of their more insalubrious features too.
One additional point of interest for anyone who may remember Adair as the columnist Heurtebise in the old Sight and Sound magazine (i.e. longstanding film fans) is to be found in the names that he has given his characters here. The Reverend is called Wattis, the actress is Rutherford, the doctor is Rolfe, the crime writer Mount, the estate manager Farrar, and in passing we hear of Tomelty, Grenfell, and so on. If these are unfamiliar then google the names Richard Wattis, Margaret Rutherford (who of course played Miss Marple), Guy Rolfe, Peggy Mount, David Farrar, Joseph Tomelty, Joyce Grenfell, and you'll get the idea. Stalwarts all of the British film industry, and to those familiar with them they will automatically summon up mental images, not necessarily appropriate, of the characters who share their names.
In conclusion then, this is an extremely enjoyable Agatha Christie pastiche that works as an ingenious, entertaining and wholly satisfying murder mystery in it's own right.
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A classic dark and stormy night - and day
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This is lots of fun and as comfy as a well-stuffed sofa.
It does rely too much on the characters holding court for pages on end which does seem a bit lazy on the author's part as it doesn't create much tension in a murder mystery.
Whilst it's not a patch on "proper" whodunnits and is sometimes a bit overwritten as Adair tries to get the right register for the characters' speech, Roger Murgatroyd is a like a commute: you know where you'e going, you recognise everyone on the bus or train with you and all the stops along the way are familiar, just sit back and enjoy.
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Intermittently entertaining...
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...but ultimately annoying and unconvincing. As a mystery in its own right, the book fails.
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Delightful old fashioned "locked-room" Cluedo style murder mystery
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If you like this type of thing then this is perfectly right up your alley. It won't change the world; it won't solve global warming and it will never be the greatest book ever written. What it will do is entertain you in a good predictable way; and it might stand up to repeat readings many years down the line if you keep forgetting the ending. It's slightly post-modern as it references its own genre conventions, but there's nothing too arty about it.
If you're not into old fashioned murder mysteries then why are you reading this review? There's nothing here for you. It does exactly what it's meant to do within its genre, and it's well written - the way the writing changes perspective at the end is very dramatic and nicely done.
The book is a great big cliche but it knows it's a cliche; that's the whole point. The author seems to have proper literary credentials, and has crafted this book for fun. Fun that can be felt by the reader - see also Going To The Dogs by Dan Kavanaugh (real name Julian Barnes) for a similar lightweight mystery by an acclaimed literary author.
Also check out an obscure TV show called Monk. Every episode has an impossibly complicated murder mystery to be solved.
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Really great fun
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Adair has written a detective story that I think almost any writer from the Golden Age would have been proud to put their name to. Filled with numerous in-jokes and references to classic detective stories, "The Act of Roger Murgatroyd" nevertheless is not just for established fans of the genre. It's exactly what I was hoping it to be: a real brainbender of a whodunnit, with red herrings everywhere and every character looking like a legitimate suspect, and it's written in an easy, comical style. While Adair fills his novel with clichés, there is a self-awareness about his writing that forgives this. It's both parody and art, if that's possible.
The heroine, Evadne Mount, "Dowager Duchess of Crime", was hard to like at first, but I found that once the story got going she grew on me enormously. For all her flaws - vanity, roughness and a reluctance to hand the centre stage over to someone else - she was a character who I ended up finding incredibly easy to root for.
All in all, it's a charming, tongue-in-cheek novel - perhaps its one failing is that at 286 pages it's a little too short! It really is the most enjoyable book - the sort that makes you stay in bed all morning reading it! I'd highly recommend it to anyone, and I'm very much looking forward to reading the sequels.
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