Customer Reviews

Mortdecai Trilogy

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Comic thrillers written in the early 70s. Slightly but charmingly dated, like many of the women in the story. As the previous reviewer notes, this is Chandler meeting Wodehouse; if both sat down to write a "Lovejoy" episode, or maybe the next Austin Powers, this is what it would be like. I read it on a plane ride and it was perfect. Bonfiglioli is unashamedly a Wodehouse fan, even quotes the great "Plum". I think there is a Mortdecai revival under way in the UK, so you might find stock at Amazon.co.uk. A friend from England gave me my copy.

A fine blend of Chandler and Wodehouse. Wicked violence, convoluted plots and sharp humor by the bucketload.

One of the best books I have read recently - engaging, enormously funny and very creative. The humor is phenomenal to be more accurate. After the first twenty or so pages, you will not be able to put this book away again. Highly recommended!

Kyril Bonfiglioli knows how to mix a perfect cocktail of a book like no other. While others may sacrifice one quality for the sake of privaledging another, with the result of overwelming dryness or uninspiring wetness (lacrymose), Bonfiglioli knows how to stir up all the ingredients (a nice bit of brutality here, a sardonic observation there, a bit of satire elsewhere, and just a rumor of pathos) with the result of something of overall satisfaction and with the miracle of the individual flavors not being lost. His hero, the Hon. Charlie Mortdecai, I would rank even over the immortal Flashman for candid, rakish charm, and for a easy offhand (and yet pointed) manner of wit that would not have embarrassed you know who.

Because of Leo Carey's wry, admiring, melancholy essay in THE NEW YORKER, I grabbed these novels when I found them at a local used bookstore, and oh, how I wanted to like them more than I ended up doing. But they're just not as good as the hype. They drift all over the place [to be fair, Carey admitted that devotees of mysteries would find these books too undisciplined], and the narrator's aggressively amoral personality -- imagine P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster crossed with Jonathan Gash's Lovejoy -- can wear on one after a while. The plots are made of Swiss cheese, at best, and these books are also sadly dated in their views of women. Maybe it's because I read the Lovejoy books before these -- if I had come to them without knowing about Lovejoy, I would have enjoyed them more.

This trilogy was recommended to me by my ex-wife, which should have told me something right off the bat. Only too late I realized that I had read one of the stories before, and hadn't cared for it.

The protagonist is, as he is intended to be, an offensive, arrogant prick. The problem is he is offensive and arrogant to the reader as well as the other characters, and by...oh let's say page three...becomes extremely tiresome.

The plots vary from totally implausible to actively offensive.

If you want to read some serious, adult mysteries read the Martin Beck books. You can leave the Hon. Charlie Mordecai to himself and his self-satisfied drivel.