The Golden Child (Paperback, Reissue)

England's answer to the King Tut madness - the "Golden Child" exhibit at London's great Museum - inspires a literate mystery-comedy that begins superbly but soon becomes far too knotty and cutely frazzled. Waring Smith, a junior officer at the Museum and chum of ancient Sir William Simpson (who unearthed the Golden Child tomb in Africa decades ago but now just putters about the Museum), is sent to Russia when the Museum suspects that there may be fakes among its borrowed Golden Child treasures. Indeed, Smith sees all the real Golden goodies in the Kremlin (!) and returns - only to find that Sir Will has been murdered in the Museum library. The clues include lots of silly hieroglyphics, and Smith's assistant sleuths include a professor named Untermensch and a socialist dissident on the Museum staff. Several bright comic moments, a few nicely Wodehousian oddballs, and some museum satire directly relatable to Tut - but Fitzgerald's formula plot is only half hidden behind all those obvious red herrings and all those hard-working verbal grace notes. (Kirkus Reviews)

'The Golden Child', Penelope Fitzgerald's first work of fiction, is a classically plotted British mystery centred around the arrival of the Golden Child at a London museum. Far be it for the hapless Waring Smith, junior officer at a prominent London museum, to expect any kind of thanks for his work on the opening of the year's biggest exhibition - The Golden Child. But when he is nearly strangled to death by a shadowy assailant and packed off to Moscow to negotiate with a mysterious curator, he finds himself at the centre of a sinister web of conspiracy, fraudulent artifacts and murder... Her first novel and a comic gem, 'The Golden Child' is written with the sharp wit and unerring eye for human foibles that mark Penelope Fitzgerald out as a truly inimitable author, and one to be cherished.

General

Imprint:	Fourth Estate
Country of origin:	United Kingdom
Release date:	August 1994
Authors:	Penelope Fitzgerald
Introduction by:	Charles Saumarez Smith
Dimensions:	197 x 128 x 18mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback - B-format
Pages:	261
Edition:	Reissue
ISBN-13:	978-0-00-654625-2
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction Books > Fiction > Genre fiction > Crime & mystery > General
LSN:	0-00-654625-0
Barcode:	9780006546252

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