4 out of 4 stars
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Death Must Go On! is a crime novel by Mac Fletcher. The story takes place in a village called Froxwell in 1954. Snuffy is an undertaker who’s saving up for retirement. He’s always thinking of ways to drum up more business, like selling body parts or executing a mass poisoning. Until now, those have only been pipe dreams. He talks to his friends about this predicament over a game of cards. They are also local businessmen, including a solicitor, a pharmacist, and a licensee. They determine a hit list of wealthy persons whose assets they will split between them. Obviously, things don’t go according to plan as they waver in their confidence and have an unplanned murder to cover up.
The opening description of the village immediately hooked me in. It’s the type of place where people leave their doors open during the night and there isn’t anything terrible to complain about. In one word, it’s a utopia. And that’s the irony at the center of the book: “If life is to flourish, death must go on also.” With people doing so well, how are those who profit off of other’s misfortunes supposed to prosper? It’s an intriguing premise that sets up the story well and never disappoints. The book is dialogue-heavy, and the author consistently has a unique writer’s voice that makes for an entertaining read.
The best overall aspect of the book is its dark humor combined with personable dialogue. Great character work is accomplished through how they speak to one another, with lines like: “All the drugs and poisons available to a bloke in your profession, and you pay a foreigner to club her to death.” This is a line that reveals just as much about the speaker’s personality as it does about the character being spoken to/about. It even conveys the book’s level of self-awareness. There was also more crude humor, such as: “Know the difference between a solicitor and a rhino? One’s thick-skinned, horny, and charges a lot; the other lives in Africa.” I laughed out loud on many occasions due to the amount of snappy dialogue; the characters build well off of each other in conversation to amusing effect.
There are also subtler moments such as when Joe comments that Snuffy is a kind man. Snuffy’s immediate response is: “No, I’m not kind.” The quick readiness of his defensiveness made me laugh upon first reading it. There was also the absurdness that he was defending himself against a compliment. Yet what it reveals is the underlying sadness of Snuffy’s psyche.
Because of the great dialogue, the characters are just really fun to “listen” to. And given the premise of the book, it’s just as fun to watch the extreme lengths they go to in order to carry out their elaborate and ambitious scheme. For instance, Joe dresses up as the woman who was killed in order to lower suspicions about her disappearance, which turns into him being drunk on a train in a wig.
There were a few tiny errors that I happened to notice, such as “Barney eyes” instead of “Barney’s eyes.” There was also missing punctuation on occasion. Joe, being a foreigner, speaks in broken English. His role in the story was narratively effective, but I just felt awkward reading whenever he made an actual appearance. Everyone’s got a different sense of humor.
I rate this book 4 out of 4 stars. It had an interesting premise, great dialogue, and a satisfying conclusion. If you enjoy watching characters plan murders and deal with the obstacles that entails, then you should give this book a try.
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Death Must Go On!
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