Publisher's Weekly
Mark Harvey, an assistant bank manager in the small English town of Fareham, has been voted ''chauvinist hate figure'' two years in a row by the Fareham Feminist Discussion Group, whose members include Maddie, his unfaithful wife, and her best friends. Harvey feels similarly maligned by his boss and neighbors and is happy only while building small models of soldiers and military equipment. When his wife intentionally destroys the grand prize crystal bowl he won for one of his models, Harvey, enraged, accidentally chokes her to death. In his efforts to cover up the crime, he must dress up as Maddie and finds that he makes a very attractive woman indeed, judging from the responses of many men and women. Ever more characters die in his presence under bizarre circumstances, and Harvey soon becomes more comfortable as Maddie than as the nerdy, pig-headed chap who used to be her husband. Shaw, author of Murder Out of Tune , offers a plausible mystery with many hilarious, satiric moments. The mystery was named a 1990 Book of the Year by London's Financial Times .
Library Journal
Shaw's latest features a slightly different approach to the English village mystery. Mark and Maddie Harvey do not have a happy marriage; in fact, she exacerbates the situation by flaunting her infidelity and flailing an acid tongue. After a particularly violent wrangle which results in Maddie's death, Mark dissembles so well that police believe her alive and in hiding. Various entertaining complications, including an over-plump lover, a suicidal boarder, an amorous neighbor, and English Civil War reenactments enliven the scene and add a certain dry humor.
Genre: Mystery
Mark Harvey, an assistant bank manager in the small English town of Fareham, has been voted ''chauvinist hate figure'' two years in a row by the Fareham Feminist Discussion Group, whose members include Maddie, his unfaithful wife, and her best friends. Harvey feels similarly maligned by his boss and neighbors and is happy only while building small models of soldiers and military equipment. When his wife intentionally destroys the grand prize crystal bowl he won for one of his models, Harvey, enraged, accidentally chokes her to death. In his efforts to cover up the crime, he must dress up as Maddie and finds that he makes a very attractive woman indeed, judging from the responses of many men and women. Ever more characters die in his presence under bizarre circumstances, and Harvey soon becomes more comfortable as Maddie than as the nerdy, pig-headed chap who used to be her husband. Shaw, author of Murder Out of Tune , offers a plausible mystery with many hilarious, satiric moments. The mystery was named a 1990 Book of the Year by London's Financial Times .
Library Journal
Shaw's latest features a slightly different approach to the English village mystery. Mark and Maddie Harvey do not have a happy marriage; in fact, she exacerbates the situation by flaunting her infidelity and flailing an acid tongue. After a particularly violent wrangle which results in Maddie's death, Mark dissembles so well that police believe her alive and in hiding. Various entertaining complications, including an over-plump lover, a suicidal boarder, an amorous neighbor, and English Civil War reenactments enliven the scene and add a certain dry humor.
Genre: Mystery
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