1997 humorous detective fiction; first of Alcorn's novels of Norman de
Ratour, Recording Secretary at the Museum of Man, an anthropological
museum somewhere in New England. Dean Fessing goes missing, and most
of him turns up expertly cooked. That inevitably starts rumours of
cannibalism, but there may be fire to go with this smoke…
This is also a parody of attitudes in academia, with varying
levels of success; broad swipes at the politically-correct radical
feminist (and she eats all the doughnuts, har har har) and
self-important incomprehensible literary criticism (with several pages
of pastiche) don't work as well as digs at the more general academic
politics surrounding the neighbouring Wainscott University's attempts
to take over the museum, discussions on a proposed diorama of
Neanderthal life, and what seems like an attempt to implement the
Infinite Monkeys experiment. Alcorn worked at Harvard's Museum of
Natural History for some years, and one suspects that much of this is
drawn from the life; towards the end it sometimes seems a little like
a well-mannered revenge fantasy, particularly in the mawkishly
romantic coda.
There has been talk over the years of a Brauer cult, maintained by
him and his students who were present at the alleged murder and
cannibalism. They meet, supposedly, and do things that cults do. I
have never subscribed to the rumor myself. It strikes me as
apocryphal, one of those tasteless jokes that gets started around
the campfire and takes on a life of its own. Besides, I can't
imagine academics letting something like that go by without someone,
somewhere, publishing a paper on it.
The pace is always slow; the book is presented as de Ratour's private
notes, and he's a fussy and precise person, though he certainly
undergoes something of an internal revolution over the course of the
book.
I stepped around the carnage, picked up the papers, and left.
Downstairs I told a uniformed officer that there was a dead chimp in
my office and it was to be treated as evidence in a murder case. He
said he would inform one of the detectives.
The writing is particularly good, and I found the book something of a
pleasure to read simply for itself as well as for its content.
This is alas the sort of book that's full of silly names, not just
Thad Pilty and Corny Chard, but a dig site called Infra, and a Father
S. J. O'Gould S. J. The mystery itself relies on a couple of
last-minute reveals and what seems to me like insufficient motivation,
and substantial secondary plot elements are left entirely unresolved
(though I suspect they will be revisited in a future book in the
series).
Overall, perhaps this is a little too consciously clever for its own
good, but it's still highly enjoyable. Followed by The Love Potion
Murders in the Museum of Man.
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