Aiding & Abetting [Large Print] [Hardcover]

Muriel Spark (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2001

Muriel Spark, one of Britain's greatest living novelists, returns to the literary stage with her most wickedly amusing and subversive novel in years, a savagely witty tale of murder and escape based on the notorious real-life case of Lord Lucan.

A dissolute member of the British aristocracy, "Lucky" Lucan has been missing since he accidentally murdered his children's nanny in an abortive attempt on his wife's life. His puzzling disappearance in the mid-seventies created a sensation in Britain and a tantalizing mystery as yet unsolved. In Muriel Spark's daring and sophisticated fictional version of Lucan's flight, his adversary is Beate Pappenheim, a fake Bavarian stigmatic who embezzled millions from devout followers before assuming a new identity as a celebrated psychiatrist. These two inhabitants of the farther shores of morality collide memorably in Spark's brilliant new novel, where "aiding and abetting" Lord Lucan's well-padded fugitive life is the name of the beastly upper-class game, and a duel of wits plays out with potentially mortal consequences. The artful murderer meets the master con-woman, but who will emerge victorious?

In part a rumination on the nature of evil, in part a damning indictment of upper-class mores, Aiding and Abetting is a dark and dazzling entertainment from a writer whose clear-eyed judgments never intrude upon her narrative legerdemain. Here is proof beyond doubt that Muriel Spark retains her crown as the most distinguished and entertaining moral satirist of her day.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

First, a bit of history: The seventh Earl of Lucan disappeared on November 7, 1974, leaving behind the battered body of his children's nanny and a beaten wife. Widely covered in the press, his sensational story has had a surprisingly long half-life, and the speculation about his whereabouts has never quite died out. In this book, Muriel Spark toys with several provocative issues arising out of the case: identity, class, blood ("it is not purifying, it is sticky"), and the dynamics of psychiatry ("most of the money wasted on psychoanalysis goes on time spent unraveling the lies of the patient").

Aiding and Abetting opens sometime late in the 20th century, when an Englishman in his 60s walks into the Paris practice of famed Bavarian psychiatrist Dr Hildegard Wolf and announces that he is the missing Lord Lucan. Yet Hildegrad is already treating one self-confessed Lord Lucan. And what's more, both patients seem to have dirt on her--for isn't she really Beate Pappenheim, a notorious fraud who used her menstrual blood to fake her stigmata? Fearing for her safety, Hildegard flees to London, where her path inevitably crosses that of two British Lucan hunters.

Aiding and Abetting contains more than its share of broad farce and bitter irony. But it remains a strange, slight affair, its unspoken tenet being that the Lucan case still preys on the communal mind of the British public, its details (like the perpetrator's penchant for smoked salmon and lamb chops) indelibly printed there. For anyone under 30, that's a difficult argument to swallow. As one wise character puts it: "Few people today would take Lucan and his pretensions seriously, as they rather tended to do in the 70s." Times have changed indeed--and perhaps that's Spark's point after all, that the "psychological paralysis" of the not-quite-swinging '70s is long gone. --Alan Stewart --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Terse, astringent and blessed with a wicked satiric wit, Spark has been casting a jaundiced eye on British society in more than 20 works of fiction, including Memento Mori and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Here she spins an inspired "what-if" scenario on the criminal career of the notorious seventh Earl of Lucan, convicted in absentia in 1974 of bludgeoning his children's nanny to death and severely wounding his wife, before eluding the police and leaving the country. It was clear at the time, Spark reminds readers, that "Lucky" Lucan could not have avoided capture unless he was liberally supplied with funds, undoubtedly by other members of the arrogant aristocracy who considered class loyalty more important than justice, and whose warped morality convinced them that they were above the law. Spark's ingenious plot, set in the present, features two men who identify themselves as the fugitive Lucan when they (separately) consult a notorious Paris psychiatrist, Hildegard Wolf. Wolf's unconventional methods have made her famous, but in this case she is bewildered by the situation until one of the men threatens her with blackmail. Lucan, it turns out, is not the only one with blood on his hands. Wolf was born Beate Pappenheim in Bavaria, and under that name perpetrated a notorious scam in which she passed herself off as a stigmatic, creating her "wounds" with her menstrual blood. After soliciting contributions to perform "miracles," she absconded with millions. As the narrative unfolds, the reader is immersed in a puzzling maze with three characters who are all imposters and fraudsDone of whom is a murderer, too. Only a writer of Spark's caliber could get away with the coincidences in the blatantly manipulated plot but, then again, she writes brilliantly about the criminal mind. (Feb. 20)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 192 pages
• Publisher: Thorndike Pr (May 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 078623184X
• ISBN-13: 978-0786231843
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,165,452 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wry satire of the true-crime genre and of the aristocracy., February 15, 2001

By 

Mary Whipple (New England) - See all my reviews
(COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Aiding and Abetting (Hardcover)

This is a real treat to read, with a wonderfully appropriate grand finale which depends on surprise! A unique and suspenseful twist on the traditional murder mystery, this novel is based on the real-life character of Lord Lucan, who in 1974 killed his children's nanny by mistake instead of killing his wife. Though he vanished and has never been found, many have suspected that he has been housed and hidden over the years by a series of aristocratic friends.

In this satiric approach to the true-crime genre, Spark gives us wacky, off-the-wall characters--including two men who claim to be the "real" Lord Lucan. Adding to the dramatic mix are variety of aristocratic "aiders and abettors" who have protected and financially supported Lucan for twenty-five years, a psychiatrist who was once a phony stigmatic but who is now treating both "Lord Lucans," and several former acquaintances who now want Lucan caught, not because they believe that murder is wrong, but because times have changed--"Lucky Lucan failed to show up [for questioning], which was really lowering our standards....he was a very great bore."

Satiric and mordantly critical of aristocratic pretension, this is vintage Spark. Her plotting is tight, with no loose ends and no digressions, and her selection of details is exquisitely careful and controlled. Her themes and motifs, especially those of blood as it relates to both crime and breeding, are so intricately connected to all the characters and the plot, that it is difficult to discuss them without giving away the clever plot twists. And Spark does all this in less than two hundred pages. It is impossible not to read this at a gallop to find out what happens--while smiling the whole time at Spark's wry wit. Mary Whipple

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Light, brisk satire mocking yesteryear's British aristocracy, July 31, 2004

By 

D. Cloyce Smith (Brooklyn, NY) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aiding and Abetting: A Novel (Paperback)

The high-brow farce of "Aiding and Abetting" revolves around two drawn-from-real-life criminals who both have "blood on their hands." The first, Lord "Lucky" Lucan, who intended to murder his wife but mistakenly killed his children's nanny, disappeared in 1974 and hasn't been seen since. The second is Beate Pappenheim/Hildegard Wolf, a fraudulent stigmatic and faith healer who bamboozled her followers before escaping with a fortune.

But, to complicate matters even further, Spark adds a third impostor: a former butler who looks so much like Lucan ("They were not indistinquishable, but they might have been brothers.") that the two work in league to thwart either's capture. The comedy results when Spark brings together her three characters: a fraud who reenters the "real" world by assuming a new identity, a murderer who flees to the underworld by assuming a fake identity, and a butler who straddles both worlds by assuming the identity of a killer pretending not to be a killer. Each of the three becomes dependent on the other two for survival, and an uneasy detente results because the exposure of any of them would likely result in the exposure of all three.

Since authorities suspected that Lucan's escape was enabled by his aristocratic peers, the author adds further irony depicting an upper class who protects a murderer because it's the "proper" thing to do: "They seemed to have been faithful in the class-conscious sense." No doubt it's hard for modern (especially young) readers to imagine that, only thirty years ago, upper-class snobbishness extended even to assisting a homicidal maniac. British aristocrats "are not the same people as [they] were a quarter of a century ago . . . Since Lucan's day, snobs have been greatly emarginated." Spark is ridiculing both British aristocracy and their hankering for the "good old days"; it is this theme in particular that recalls the early satires of Evelyn Waugh.

The novel's hasty ending likewise reminds the reader of Waugh's "A Handful of Dust"; it is somewhat unsatisfying, not the least because the perspective shifts unexpectedly during the final pages. Still, although a slim, brisk read (barely a novella, in fact), "Aiding and Abetting" hits many of its upper-crust targets while simultaneously mocking the meaning of identity.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enigmatic novella, February 15, 2001

By 

Mr. K. Mahoney "Kevin Mahoney" (Punked Books, London, UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Aiding and Abetting (Hardcover)

Twenty-five years after the murder of nanny Sandra Rivett, two Lord Lucans consult Parisian psychiatrist Dr. Hildegard Wolf. The anniversary is also the catalyst for a new investigation into Lucan's disappearance, conducted by the daughter of one of Lucan's former friends. Hildegard is initially shocked by having to treat two Lucans, but then takes it in her stride. One of the Lucans, obviously, has to be fake, but which one? However, both Lucans know about Hildegard's subversive past, and have got a hold on her, forcing her to flee. If it's one thing Lucan knows well, it's how to run...

Resumes of this novel can't help but sound fantastic and more than a little distasteful. After all, those who suffered from Lucan's crime are still living. However, the disappearance of Lucan remains as enigmatic today as it ever was. The rumours of what happened to him, and what actually happened on the night he killed Sandra Rivett are numerous. All these are discussed in Spark's novel, although the common belief amongst Lucan's former friends that he must have killed himself is arbitrarily dismissed. The question is how could such a dull man ever have evaded capture for so long? One of the most improbable stories about Lucan, printed in the Guardian at the time of the murder, was that he was once considered for the film role of James Bond.

It seems that Muriel Spark has borrowed the name of Robert Walker (the alias of one of the Lucans), from Hitchcock's film 'Strangers on a Train'. This fits her story since both Lucans are presumed to be in collusion with one another for some reason. In Hitchcock's film, Robert Walker kills Farley Granger's wife, and then blackmails Granger to murder his business tycoon father. Both Lucans blackmail Hildegard about her shady past. I couldn't find any reference to the fake stigmatic Spark based this part of her story upon, but there is another stigmatic of Bavaria in history, who was called Teresa Neumann. All in all, the magic of Spark's prose and characterisation draws you in. The only moment that you may have trouble trying to believe is when the young Lacey and the aged Joseph Murray fall in love when searching for Lucan. Maybe this will draw the attentions of Hollywood to this novel! This intriguing story is composed in a tasteful, elegant way, and there are moments when you can't help but burst into laughter, such is Muriel Spark's great wit. I haven't given this novella full marks though, because it does have quite limited ambitions. I think it could also have gone straight into paperback - it doesn't seem good value at a hardcover price.