Synopsis
When the chairperson of the prestigious Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize dies in suspicious circumstances, Robert Amiss (the token sane member of the judging panel) wastes no time in summoning Baroness "Jack" Troutbeck to step into the chair. Speculation that a killer may be targeting the judges does not worry the baroness in the slightest - it's the prospect of immersing herself in modern literature that fills her with dread. But noblesse must oblige, even when it means joining the ranks of the superciliati sitting in judgment of the literati.
With the baroness at the helm, the judges resume the task of whittling away at the shortlist. But the killer, too, has resumed work and is whittling away at the judges one by one....
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Review
Like other venerable British institutions Ruth Dudley Edwards has gutted in previous mysteries, the literary cognoscenti (""the superciliati,"" she calls them) hold no terror for this ribald satirist. In CARNAGE ON THE COMMITTEE (Poisoned Pen, $24.95), she unleashes the hounds on prestigious, money-bearing awards like the Booker and the Whitbread, creating a fictional model rife with corruption and cronyism.
Edwards's attack dog is the formidable Baroness Troutbeck (""Jack"" to her chums), mistress of St. Martha's, Cambridge University, a rudely outspoken tyrant whose mission is to restore common sense and Tory retro-values to a civilization self-destructing from political correctness.
As a favor to Robert Amiss, her more diplomatic sidekick in these rollicking adventures, Jack agrees to take over when Lady Hermione Babcock, 'la grande fromage' of the Knapper-Warburton Literary Prize, is poisoned at a committee meeting. While Jack isn't shy about biting off the heads of colleagues who spout 'highbrow piffle and egalitarian rhetoric' for their own opportunistic aims, she is reduced to incoherent rage by the novels on her reading list. Given the execrable taste of this committee, it's only fair that Jack should give a free pass to the murderer who is picking them off one by one. -- Marilyn Stasio, NY Times (11.7.2004)
About the Author
Dr Ruth Dudley Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin, Ireland. Since she graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and, finally, a freelance writer, journalist and broadcaster.An historian and prize-winning biographer, her recent non-fiction includes the authorized history of The Economist, a portrait of the British Foreign Office and a book about the newspaper world of the mid-twentieth century. She uses her knowledge of the British establishment in her satirical crime novels: targets so far include the civil service, gentlemen's clubs, Cambridge colleges, the House of Lords, the Church of England, publishing, literary prizes and - always - political correctness. She has three times been short-listed for awards from the Crime Writers' Association. www.ruthdudleyedwards.com
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