Sunday, November 22, 2009
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Murder/Mystery and Thriller Book Reviews

Ben Elton: Dead Famous

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Dead Famous is a parody of “Big Brother” and Reality TV in general. It’s set in a house with 10 contestants:

David, an actor
Jazz, a trainee chef
Kelly, a sales consultant
Sally, a female bouncer
Garry, a van driver
Moon, a trapeze artist
Hamish, a junior doctor
Woggle, an anarchist
Layla, a fashion designer and
Dervla, a trauma therapist

The house itself is literally covered in cameras, so if one of the contestants was to be murdered it would be dead (no pun intended) easy to catch the killer, right? Wrong!

Coleridge and his team of detectives have been tasked with finding a murderer that pulled off one big stunt. Not only did they kill someone on the most popular show on TV, but they did it while avoiding every single one of the cameras that watches the contestants 24/7.

As you can imagine, this is one of the most televised murder cases ever. And considering this there is surprisingly little evidence for Coleridge and his team to work from. But so what, it makes great TV and the advertising revenue is astronomical!

Ben Elton has written a funny, clever and startling whodunit focusing around our insane belief in the celebrity. One that allows people to become famous for simply being famous, and not on merit. But it’s the characters that really make this novel come alive. They are nothing short of fantastic and bring with them an enchanting mixture of comedy, surrealism and stubbornness, particularly Woggle. His argument that killing the flees he carries is no different than killing foxes is fantastic, and the way that people react to these statements in the book, are not only believable but highly likely.

Elton’s treatment of youth (yoof) culture can be a little scathing (to say the least), but it is witty none the less. So, if you’re interested in a well paced, thrilling and insightful read then Ben Elton’s critically acclaimed Dead Famous could well be the book for you.

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