Home |Register |Sign In Home Top Picks: All Books QUICK CURTAIN QUICK CURTAIN by Alan Melville Price: $12.95 () Published: December 05, 2017 Rating: 0.0/ 5 (0 votes cast) From the Publisher: 'Don't talk bunk!' said Mr Douglas. 'You can't carry on with the show with a man dying on stage.</p><p> Drop the curtain!' When Douglas B.</p><p> Douglas - leading light of the London theatre - premieres his new musical extravaganza, Blue Music, he is sure the packed house will bedazzled by the performance.</p><p> What he couldn't predict is the death of hisstar, Brandon Baker, on stage in the middle of Act 2.</p><p> Soon another member of the cast is found dead, and it seems to be a straightforward case of murder followed by suicide.</p><p> Inspector Wilson of Scotland Yard -who happens to be among the audience - soon discovers otherwise.Together with Derek, his journalist son, Wilson takes charge ofproceedings in his own inimitable way.</p><p> This is a witty, satirical novel from the golden age of British crime fiction between the world wars.</p><p> It is long overdue for rediscovery and this new edition includes an informativeintroduction by Martin Edwards, author of The Golden Age of Murder .</p><p> Rate This Book Add To Wishlist |Rate/Review Add To Bookshelf Get This Book Personalize / Add More ChoicesGo to your preferred retailer, click to choose a format and you' ll be taken directly to their site where you can get this book.</p><p> What We Say Stuff and nonsense from start to finish.</p><p> Huzzah! This dishy satire of the theater world and the mystery novel was first published in 1934.</p><p> You wouldn't know it from the ribald characters on tap, including Douglas B.</p><p> Douglas (the impresariocapitalizing on a sudden death some 20 years before David Merrick appeared on Broadway), a starlet who entertains more people at her home than on stage, the unflappable stagehand named Robert and the critic who writes his reviews up beforehand because all these shows are the same -- just stuff and nonsense, from start to finish.</p><p> Fans of the Great WhiteWay will love how little has changed, including obsessed fans who descend on a funeral like locusts and egotistical stars onthe rise and fall.</p><p> Equally fun is Melville's tweaking of the conventions of the crime novel.</p><p> He's got a police detective living in luxury a la Lord Peter Wimsey, the detective's son working on a lark at a newspaper and so many clues and twists and turns that I guarantee you won't figure out whodunnit or why.</p><p> No really, you won't because the last thing Melville wasinterested in was playing fair and giving you all the clues.</p><p> He pulls out the rug from under us during a farcical finale filledShare This Book About The Author Alan Melville ALAN MELVILLE (1910-1983) was a well- known television broadcaster, as well as a playwright, producer and scriptwriter.Among his works are several crime novelsfrom the 1930s, often set in the popularentertainment world he knew at first hand.</p><p> Release Info List Price: $12.95 () Published: December 05, 2017with a flurry of letters and telegrams and confessions.</p><p> The only real surprise is that this goof has never been staged before. -- Michael Giltz What Others Say "I am going to go all out and say that Quick Curtain is the best detective novel I have read, after Agatha Christie's.</p><p> A big claim, yes, but deserved - this was a huge delight of a novel....a thousand hurrahs to the BritishLibrary and Martin Edwards for rediscovering Alan Melville." (Shiny New Books) "Alan Melville's Quick Curtain ismore than just a detective novel set in the theatre....Before the novel begins, there is a printed playbill of thecharacters and in the structuring of the novel itself where every chapter ends on a cliff-hanger, the way amelodramatic play might close an act or a scene.</p><p> The style of writing, which is often used to set up a location or a character can be likened to a play script, concise, sharp and crisp...For all those who enjoy comic detective novels, which don't take themselves too seriously I would definitely recommend this tale; the humorous investigative style and dialogue of Inspector Wilson and Derek make this an enjoyable read." (Crossexamining Crime) "Full marks to Melville for his Pagliacci-like premise, which predates Michael Innes' better-known use ofonstage homicide in Hamlet, Revenge! by three years, and for a confident, waspish wit perfectly suited to histheatrical milieu..." (Kirkus Reviews) "Melville's jaunty, chatty tone (he frequently reminds readers where theyare in the plot) gives us an insider's look at everyone connected to the theater world, including critics whorecycle their reviews.</p><p> A wonderfully fun British Library Crime Classics revival." (Connie Fletcher Booklist) What You Say Filter by No Reviews Found ..... about us |faq|advertise |privacy policy |newsletter |contact us ©2018, BookBuddha LLc.</p><p> All Rights Reserved.
