Synopses & Reviews
British satirist Edwards continues to skewer the Establishment with the misadventures of civil servant Robert Amiss and the keen deductions of his sleuthing partner, the irrepressible, irreverent Baroness ""Jack"" Troutbeck. Edwards, who's filleted the Foreign Office, clobbered a Cambridge college, jeered at gentlemen in their clubs, and defrocked the clergy in past books, now pulverizes the world of magazine publishing where to uphold traditions runs fatal risks.
Fictionalizing some of her own experiences as a journalist, Edwards creates the revered political rag The Wrangler, then sends in Amiss to sort out a hemorraghing cash flow, the succession plans of its most noble patron, a takeover bid from a strong-minded Australian woman (who has her eye on Jack), antiquated procedures that will have you rolling on the floor, preservation of a beautiful and historic London town house as company headquarters, and the inevitable little murder....
Amiss, long mired in inertia, is encouraged to break out of the civil service mentality, sort out his own emotional life, and Get On With It.
Truly a lovely, very funny, and provocative book that asks how we can balance what's worth keeping from our past with where we need to go to survive the future?
Review
Irish biographer and journalist Edwards has written the best in a series that's been targeting England's revered institutions. In this one, her bumbling sleuth Robert Amiss has been hired to modernize an inefficient, conservative, intellectual English journal that's modeled on the Economist. Progress here involves a shocking takeover bid, rancid office politics and a wacky murder. Amiss' sidekick in all this delicious hugger-mugger is, as usual, the loony, rude, bisexual and politically incorrect Baroness Jack Troutbeck. Publish and Be Murdered combines the eccentric characters of P.G. Wodehouse with the satire of Kingsley Amis.
Lev Raphael, Detroit Free Press
Synopsis
British satirist Edwards skewers the Establishment with the misadventures of civil servant Robert Amiss and the keen deductions of the irrepressible, irreverent Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck as they enter the world of magazine publishing where to uphold traditions runs fatal risks. The Wrangler, a revered political rag, requires Amiss to sort out a hemorrhaging cash flow, the succession plans of its noble patron, a takeover bid from a strong-minded Australian, antiquated procedures, preservation of a beautiful and historic London town house as company headquarters, and the inevitable little murder....
Amiss, long mired in inertia, is encouraged to break out of the civil service mentality, sort out his own emotional life, and Get On With It.
Synopsis
Robert Amiss, lapsed civil servant, is approached by Lord Papworth, owner of the Wrangler, to step in as business manager for the august journal and do something about its steady drain on his lordship's finances. The magazine's editor, Willie Lambie Crump, and his staff are firmly mired in the 1950s, technologically speaking; ideologically, the journal has always been strongly conservative. Prodded by Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck, his rather menacing guardian angel, Amiss takes on the job and soon has his hands full trying to further the journal's progress toward the latter half of the 20th century without unduly upsetting the staff. When the political editor, Henry Potbury, is found dead under odd circumstances and Crump is murdered, Amiss discovers once again that trying to keep a job can be a lethal occupation.