In the aftermath of a murder at a city museum, Norman de Ratour, a self-effacing secretary and fastidious sleuth, begins an investigation and uncovers a cannibal cult in the anthropology section and eugenics in the genetics lab. IP.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com Review
"Extraordinary, I thought, the way a detective's mind must work, the way suspicion gets raised nearly to an art form." So writes Norman de Ratour, the somewhat effete, occasionally waspish, wholly engaging, and eventually victorious hero of this delightful first mystery. Norman is the recording secretary at the Museum of Man, which is attached to Wainscott University in the New England town of Seaboard. (Since Alcorn runs the travel program at the Museum of Cultural and Natural History at Harvard, we might assume that the Museum of Man shares some fictional turf with Alcorn's real place of employment.) Through de Ratour's journals, we follow the progress of various murders, acts of cannibalism (described in the best of taste, of course), suspicious primate experiments, and even a poignant love story, in a book that manages to be touching, exciting, and very funny at the same time.
From Library Journal
A college dean's cannibalistic murder symbolizes a college administration's attempt to assume control of a closely allied museum?or so thinks narrator Norman de Ratour, recording secretary of Seaboard's Museum of Man for 30 years. Finding himself a suspect in the murder, Norman seeks to lay blame elsewhere; he would dearly love to implicate the new museum administrator, a boorish, slovenly incompetent. The narrator's arch tone and arid humor will provide solid entertainment for lovers of psychological mystery from Alcorn (The Pull of the Earth, 1986. o.p.).
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hilarious academic satire & parody of the mystery genre,
By U.N. Owen (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Murder in the Museum of Man (Paperback)
I love nothing more than a good skewering of the intelligentsia. This novel is laugh out loud funny in its relentless and irreverent atttacks on academia in all its self-absorbed importance and megalomania. The discovery of a human corpse done up in a variety of gourmet dishes that apparently has been served or eaten by the murderer sets us off on a tour of creepy and absurd goings-on at the Museum of Man. As an added bonus, throughout the novel there are is hysterical puns and allusions to contemprorary fiction and great literature. Pay attention to the odd names of the characters and you may find a few anagrams. My favorite is the scene in the Skull Collection Room when Norman, while holding the skull of Rick Royrick (!), a deceased food critic, says: "I knew him, Alger. He was known to be a man of infinite digestion." ) This book was superb and often surprisingly poignant.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A delicious send-up of every imaginable pretension,
By A Customer
This review is from: Murder in the Museum of Man (Paperback)
This book is only nominally a murder mystery. But that's OK. In fact, that's wonderful--because Alfred Alcorn has written one of the wryest, dryest, funniest send-ups I've ever read. With cleverness, wit, and something akin to slapstick, Alcorn skewers the pretensions of academia, the 1960s, elitist culture, multiculturalism, bureaucracy . . . you name it, he's got its number! I laughed out loud reading this book, and you will, too.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Wonderful whimsical satire of life in academia,
By A Customer
This review is from: Murder In The Museum Of Man (Hardcover)
This was a delightfully funny and well-written book. A sinister genetics lab, an equally suspicious Primate Pavillion, and the horrible possiblity of a new Neanderthal diorama complete with P.C. animatronic neanderthals. And only one traditional Recording Secretary trying to reestablish order. A must for all anthropologists, museum curators, graduate students and anyone who has ever been exposed to board meetings or grant proposals.
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