It’s sometime in the near future, in jolly old England, and the glorious revolution has not been quite the success hoped for. The new government has largely annihilated the excesses of the past, and controls the population with a dull mixture of surveillance and secret police…but still the population claims boredom, discomfort. A counter revolution brews. So, to spice things up and create a bit of employment, the Government plans The Last of the Country House Murders. A detective is selected (an odious representative of the secret police) and tasked with arranging the murder. He will select the method of the killing, the placing of the body, and hire the suspects. The murder will be broadcast over television, and the Country House will become a tourist attraction, ensuring the prosperity of the local economy. Now, if only the intended victim will cooperate with his government-mandated death…
This is a fascinating idea, and I wish Emma Tennant had devoted a longer book to its execution (pun intended). THE LAST OF THE COUNTRY HOUSE MURDERS is very, very short, perhaps a sliver over novella length, and as such precious little time is given to examine its myriad characters, or even the bizarre world setting. There’s lots of items of interest here: a fascist society deliberately recreating scenarios from its cultural past in an attempt to distract from its own deprivations? A detective playing the part of the savior when in fact he’s a servant of faceless evil? A victim who is both ridiculous and oddly pitiable? Brill!
Unfortunately, rather than deep analysis we have surface touches. Eccentric elements are introduced and then dropped (the victim lives in the past so powerfully that his waking dreams become shared hallucinations…apparently? This happens in a couple chapters, subsequently to be forgotten) and ultimately it is all speedily wrapped up in the same sort of melodramatic running about the novel seemed intended to lampoon. There’s a lot of fascinating stuff here; I just wish the novelist had given it the book it deserved. Me like Books.
Me Like Books 