It is series 3 of the reality television game show, House Arrest
(Big Brother in all but name) and, contrary to industry
predictions, the ratings are holding up well. From Day 27, however,
the number of viewers skyrockets - because on that day one of the
housemates is murdered. The killing has been captured on the
cameras covering every corner of the house, but the police are a
long way from solving the case. The show must go on, and the
contestants' fears are calmed somewhat by the promise of huge
payouts, but it does not alter the fact that one among them must be
the killer. Will they live to enjoy their winnings? Would-be
writers around the world will be horrified that they did not think
of this first. The Big Brother concept is an ideal platform for a
murder mystery, providing a varied cast of characters locked
together in an unnatural environment for weeks on end, with new
grudges emerging all the time, and the potential primary motive of
500,000 pounds prize money for the eventual winner. Elton handles
the situation extremely well, not only unmasking the culprit with a
flourish at the end, but also concealing the identity of the victim
until beyond the halfway point; a neat touch to keep the reader
guessing as tensions rise. Elton's early solo work was
characterised by a manic, hectoring tone that worked well in short
bursts of stand-up performance but could be exhausting across 300
or so pages of a book. However, this novel plays to the gallery
without making readers feel guilty about the number of trees it
took to produce the book they are holding. Occasionally, Elton
introduces a thought-provoking point about, say, the environment or
mental health, into the housemates' conversations, but these people
are so shallow that it is difficult to take them seriously, and it
suggests a welcome note of self-parody on the part of the author.
The main theme at the heart of the novel appears to be the
manipulative power of the media, especially television, packaging a
person's life, condensing it from 24 hours to a viewer-friendly
'highlight' reel. Reality is what television says it is, and we
believe it. New media, such as the Internet, is shown as less easy
to tame - 47,000 people see the murder live on the webcast - but
also as a haven for fools: the weirdest theories emanate from the
chat rooms and are casually dismissed by the police. Elton is
probably critic-proof these days, but happily his latest work
offers little cause for complaint. Funny and cleverly constructed,
Dead Famous relies heavily on surprise, something very difficult to
sustain in this media-saturated world, so avoid indiscreet friends
who may already have read it. After all, they might try to tell you
that the murderer is (Kirkus UK)
One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. Yet
again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group
of unknown and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal
exposure of the televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest.
Everybody knows the rules: total strangers are forced to live
together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Who will
crack first? Who will have sex with whom? Who will the public love
and who will they hate? All the usual questions. And then,
suddenly, there are some new ones. Who is the murderer? How did he
or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty
television cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?
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