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Ebooks - Mystery - |
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Poe - The Musical |
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 Poe -The Musical:An Alias Hunter Knox Mystery by T. K. Sheils LTD Books 304 pages - 75,000 words - 1999 Order from publisher ISBN 0385495838 Reviewed by John A. Broussard, PhD Sheils sets this improbable novel in an improbable place -Toronto, Ontario. The eerie first scene establishes the atmosphere for the play within the novel, and the reader is soon lost between actors and audience in the best Marquis de Sade tradition. Who but director and lyricist Alfie Rangoon and composer Podrous Wolfman would ever think to collaborate on such an unlikely musical as Poe’s life, interwoven with his weirdest writings. Little wonder that they are soon running short of cash - and that’s when they hire the instantly forgettable Alias Hunter Knox to impersonate a millionaire oilman. His job is to lure reluctant angels into supporting the show. As Henry Shell, Knox is not only shanghaied into taking part in the ill-fated musical, but also into helping the police solve the series of "accidents" that plague the performance long before it’s first night. And all the while, Alias Hunter Knox finds his body in great demand by various eligible and ineligible females making up the cast and hangers-on. Poe: The Musical is more comedy than mystery. For those who enjoy Monthy Python humor, there’s enough zaniness and off-beat one liners here to keep them well entertained. Shiels delights in the outrageous and the unbelievable, with no holds barred. Are there problems with the book? Yes. One is that the author’s humor occasionally fails, but those occasions are the exception. A more serious problem perhaps springs from the newness of the media in which it is presented. There are perhaps no more typos here than in the average paperback, but they are more noticeable and therefore more annoying on the screen. The painful, slow process of editing seems to have been glossed over in this world of quick exposure to the public. Had the needed time been taken to screen out the errors and to weigh more carefully some of the scenes, Poe - the Musical would be even easier and more fun to read. |
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