Customer Reviews

Dead Famous

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4 star:		(19)
3 star:		(1)
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"Dead Famous" is both a scathing parody of the "Big Brother"-style reality TV show and a potboiler of a murder mystery. It's also one of the best page-turners I've ever read. You meet the ten "inmates" in the trash-TV show "House Arrest Three" at the very beginning, and find out that a murder occurs on the set under the watchful eye of the cameras, but the identity of the victim isn't even revealed until halfway through the book. The killer, of course, is not revealed until the end of the book. So the book reads very fast -- I finished it in a couple of days -- partly because author Ben Elton parcels out the revelations at just the right intervals to keep you hooked.

But Elton's main reason to write the book is so he can wickedly skewer the kind of people who pursue fame on reality TV shows, as well as the adoring fans who lap up the idiocy as long as it's "good telly". I'd fault Elton for being so misanthropic if I didn't agree with him. The author's spokesman in the novel is the policeman heading the murder case, a traditional old fogey who complains constantly about having to watch the "House Arrest" tapes for clues. The policeman's unhipness is also a source of humor in the book, so it seems like Elton can also make fun of himself in the midst of his moral outrage. I especially enjoyed his mockery of the Minister of Culture, who appears on a TV program to emphasize how the government supports quality programs like "House Arrest", because we have to listen to young people and give them what they want, because they are our future. Elton's exciting murder mystery is a fancy wrapper around a bitter piece of candy.

The book is funny as well -- the program's participants are a believeable array of twentysomethings looking to jumpstart a career or promote a cause by making a name for themselves on camera. Their vacuous language and touching gullibility ring true throughout the book, as is the fickle nature of the viewing public's favor. The whole package ends up being quite enjoyable. It goes by a bit TOO fast perhaps, and the novel pretty much plays just one note about the inanity of popular youth culture, but the message is well-taken and the murder mystery makes the medicine go down smoothly.

Get ready for a satire of the "Big Brother" kind of programs that's also a modern version of the classical mystery story : a small group of people enclosed in a limited space,one of them a killer:Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" or " Murder in the sky" spring to mind. The satire and the mystery intertwine in a delicious manner,so that the clues to the reader (there are some) are almost undetectable. The charachters are plausible, the interplay sometimes wildly funny. I've loved it, especially the trick of adding a further touch of uncertainty, by letting you guess who the victim shall be. The end is pure Nero Wolfe and Hercule Poirot: the suspects re-united,and the detective who having summarised the case, absolves the innocents and culminate pointing the index finger to the culprit. All in the modern showbiz multimedial setting. That's also a social satire from a conservative point of view, and some point Ben Elton makes are worth consideration. What can I say more? Dead Famous has to be read to be believed.

Ben Elton writes as he performs - 100 miles an hour with few stops for breath. Warning - do not start reading this unless you have time to finish it in one sitting. Once you have started you will not stop. The old formula of the whodunnit story bringing together a group of people under one roof is brilliantly translated into a 'Big Brother' house. The whole thing is televised by Peeping Tom Productions, including the murder.

The inmates are repulsive in every way. Only the physically repulsive anarchist Woggle is a likeable character although he also has his dark side. Best of all is the portrayal of the cynicism of reality TV. The ending was a touch predictable but no less entertaining and clever for that. A great read.

Iside a surveilled house, a tv-house like the ones we see on big brother, a murder is comitted. Without is being clear who the killer is. How did the killer manage to be useen in a house with so many cameras? This is one of the questions for the old-fashioned police detective.
The book is both thrilling, and funny. I absolutely loved it.

Elton is masterful at making the reader like characters who do not like each other--or wouldn't, if they knew what we know...

Really funny book. If there's a moral to the story, it's that with reality shows, the only way to win is not to play the game.

Wicked. Fair play to Ben for a really bigged up top book. A whodunnit and a satire on exploitative reality shows in one. In Dead Famous a collection of misfits and wannabees are penned into a Big Brother type house for 10 weeks, but the difference this time is that one of them is actually murdered. Elton manages to keep you guessing for the first half of the book on the identity of the victim and for the second half on the identity of the murderer. Meanwhile the show's producers cynically manipulate "the reality" to make "really good telly", taking comments out of context and splicing dialogue to non-contemporaneous images.

Elton exposes the hip young culture of many modern TV shows for what it is - vapid, while at the same time taking swipes at the politicians and social commentators who try and curry favour by appearing on such shows and feigning empathy with the values espoused. When left wingers do it they look silly, but when right wingers do it they look ridiculous.

At the same time he actually champions the experienced but so-not-with-it Inspector Coleridge who brilliantly unfolds the mystery of the "House Arrest" set, using his love of MacBeth as a guide.

What I like about Elton is that although he may often appear as an anti-establishment figure, he is prepared to support what is good and moral in people like Colerdidge and condemn the loser values of the Reality TV genre.

Only minor grumble about the book's credibility was the fact that the police allowed the show to continue after the murder - they would of course have kept the crime scene isolated for longer. Elton could have used the replica set for the continuation of the game and been more credible.

So in summary a really amusing book, which exposes the reality TV genre (if it really needed exposing) for what it is.

You might not be too happy with your kids (<16) reading this because of the language, appropriate and realistic though it might be.

I read this at a trip to Portugal. My real intentions for the trip were to see Portugal; instead I sat in my hotel room reading this book. But, then again, the book only took like a couple of hours to read, just impossible to put down.
When I bought this book I didn't expect such a classically-written piece of work! Brilliant. The plot just had to be written; it was an obvious plot to the modern audience. One little snag (!) you'll mostly likely guess who the killer is by the first pages, but it doesn't matter! It's still great!

Ben Elton is at his funniest and his sharpest when he is exploring human emotions and everyday situations. This book covers the real and the surreal as it is based on the Big Brother game show.
A closed house with cameras in every room, a group of strangers, alcohol and boredom, Elton uses this gameshow set up to invent some ludicrous and believable characters both in and out of the house. Throw in a murder for good measure and you have British comedy writing at it's best.

I don't usually read many books but was interested to see how Ben Elton could create a good story from something so commonplace in the world today. The result, bloody great reading, even if you think how it might evolve, there's always a few twists & turns in the plot to keep you hooked. Nobody writes like Ben Elton & that's what makes him brilliant. He's just fantasic! Is that right Ted? Yes Dougal, it's the truth!!

If you watch any of the reality TV shows, you'll like this book. I'm not one for watching Big Brother, but I read this book faster than any other I have ever read. The book is set in the UK on the set of "House Arrest", and makes fun of the reality TV phenomenon. There's a murder mystery in there too to keep you guessing. It kept me interested, and laughing throughout.