After two unsuccessful attempts on his life, novelist Gilbert Worth is shot to death in his study. The police regard it as suicide, but luckily there is a detective who believes otherwise - Gilbert Worth himself, now existing as a ghost. Asleep when the crime was committed, Worth now sets to work trying to identify the culprit, making notes as he goes. Was it one of his three children? His wife? The domestic staff? The neighbour who admires his wife? His lawyer? Invisible and intangible, Gilbert eavesdrops on conversations and witnesses the events that follow his unlamented demise.
It's an intriguing idea, and it could have produced an excellent detective story in other hands: here it falls as flat as a wet fish. Gilbert's 'detection' largely consists in him finding out, Scrooge-like, unpalatable things about himself. There are some homilies to the simple pleasures of everyday life and a few religious overtones, but any pretense of deductive reasoning is quickly abandoned and the late Gilbert becomes nothing but a receptacle for overheard confessions. The writing is fine and the book kept my interest for most of its length, but its detective content is virtually zero.
An awkward Epilogue tacked on at the end to explain the manuscript's existence merely spoils it further: it puts the whole thing into the '...and then I woke up' class of tale.
Another wordy, worthy, detection-free Penguin. Not recommended.
Jon.
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