Customer Reviews

Publish and Be Murdered (Robert Amiss Mysteries)

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His family has owned the journal for two centuries and Lord Papworth will do anything to keep it alive and well. Desperate for help, he turns to Robert Amiss, offering the civil servant an opportunity to take over as the business manager of the Wrangler before the highly regarded periodical leaves the aristocrat bankrupt. After seeing the pre-computer technology that is deeply entrenched as part of the culture, Robert wants to miss out on this opportunity. However, Baroness Jack Troutbeck pushes Robert into taking over the business side of the journal.

It is hard enough to prod dinosaurs forward four decades. However, Robert soon deals with a killer murdering the members of the Wrangler staff. An unknown assailant kills the political editor and the magazine's editor. Robert worries that he too could be on the hit list. Robert assists as Jack tries to uncover the identity of a murderer.

The seventh Amiss satirical amateur sleuth tale retains all the charm, wit, and skewing of society that readers expect from Ruth Dudley Edwards. The story line is typical of Robert, who finds employment to be a deadly occupation. Jack remains delightfully insolent as Ms. Edwards knocks out journalism and inflexible customs with one punch.

Harriet Klausner

If you have yet to make the acquaintance of Baroness Jack Troutbeck, run, don't walk to the nearest bookstore and order yourself a copy of this book. Every time poor Robert Amiss, ex-civil servant, succumbs to Jack's wicked wiles -- no, no, not that, get your mind out of the gutter. Jack keeps finding Robert jobs, is all, after which murder is invariably committed somewhere around his person and he's left to clean up the resulting mess, with help from the exuberant and irrepressible Jack, of course.

Dudley Edwards thus far has bulls-eyed the British civil service, Oxbridge, the House of Lords, the Church of England, Anglo-Irish relations, and, in the above-named novel, the publishing industry. She is also a prolific and much-quoted commentator on Anglo-Irish politics and current events.

This is the story of a man about town who takes on a well-paying and pretigious job as manager of an ultra-conservative English Journal... but the position seemed more glamourous than it really is.

The staff is rampant with zealots, fruitcakes, drunks, and other incompetents. Then one of the chief writers dies and the Manager suspects murder, alerting a Scotland Yard friend of his suspicions. Sunsequent to that, the old benevolent despot of an Editor is murdered during a possible hostile takeover of the journal and eveyone on staff becomes a suspect.

This one is a roller-coaster ride of surprises and secrets revealed. The story is very comprehensible (a frequent problem with audiobooks) and the reader (Bill Wallis) is tremendous in his delivery.

You won't get hurt on this one except that I see that it's a little pricey -- I got lucky and found my copy in perfect condition at a Goodwill store for $1.50! There are six casette tapes in the package which run for a total of seven hours and two minutes. This story is unabridged.

Highly recommended.

I found this book to be a bit too English for my taste. I had difficulty with some of the idioms used and became totally lost in the British political references. I have read another book by the same author and had the same problem. I thought I'd give her a second chance. Her writing is excellent, and anyone with a deeper knowledge the workings of British politics, universities, etc. would undoubtedly enjoy them.