Book info

• Title Death in Purple Prose
• Author Robert Barnard
• Year 1987
• Genre Mystery

Norway in cherry blossom time seemed exactly the right place to hold a conference of the World Association of Romantic Novelists (WARN for short). Superintendent Perry Trethowan wondered at times how he had allowed his sister to ‘con’ him into accompanying her to the conference but he finally decided that his role was to be one of amused detachment and observation, most especially of the two Queens of the Conference – frothy, gushy, lethal Amanda Fairchild, the British challenger, and the vast, malevolent Lorelei Zuckerman from America. What Perry had not been prepared for was a body – one clothed in billowing pink, with a bough of cherry blossom carefully placed on the corpse. It was a most unusual murder, in a most unusual place.

Thoughts

A really interesting little book, in a sort of Agatha Christie style, it tells the story of a murder and a detective who just happens to be there to solve the mystery that the inadequate local forces can’t fathom.

There’s a variety of romantic fiction writers, who are very over the top and the author makes fun of them in a very funny way. The detective is not really an interesting fellow, but he solves the mystery well enough.

It’s comedic writing, the way he can poke fun at the situations he is writing about and the characters that he portrays are amusing. Overall it was good, if not spectacular.

Rating: 3 / 5