RED HERRINGS

by Tim Heald ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1986

Simon Bognor of Britain's Board of Trade, ""that apotheosis of phlegm,"" returns to smirk and sleuth again fairly amusingly--on holiday in the Dorset village of Herring St. George, where a visiting VAT inspector (i.e., excise tax-man) has been found dead during an annual event known as the Popinjay Clout. Was the tax-man, one Brian Wilmslow, murdered because he had learned too much about one of the local businesses? So it seems. The shady enterprises in Herring St. George include: a cult run by a hairy Swami (who turns out to be an Oxford classmate of Bognor's from the 1960's); a mail-order lingerie concern; the village-shop, operated by the aged, poverty-stricken heir to the noble Herring squireship; and a scholarly writer who secretly churns out bodice-rippers. Other possibilities also arise, however, when Bognor learns that the murder victim was the son of a bygone butler/blackmailer in the neighborhood (who knew some family secrets). And things get more complicated still when another corpse surfaces--and when Bognor gets locked in a death-freezer along with assorted, life-sized erotic confections. Silly stuff, indubitably--but, filled out with the rough/tender repartee between phlegmatic Simon and acerbic wife Monica (who is nearly poisoned along the way), this is quick, breezy diversion for Waugh-oriented Anglophiles.

Pub Date: May 1, 1986

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 1986

Categories: FICTION