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The Obituarist
by
Patrick O'Duffy (Goodreads Author)
What happens to your Facebook account when you die?
Kendall Barber calls himself an obituarist – a social media undertaker who settles accounts for the dead. If you need your loved one’s Twitter account closed down or one last blog post to be made, he’ll take care of it, while also making sure that identity thieves can’t access forgotten personal data. It’s his way of makin...more
Kendall Barber calls himself an obituarist – a social media undertaker who settles accounts for the dead. If you need your loved one’s Twitter account closed down or one last blog post to be made, he’ll take care of it, while also making sure that identity thieves can’t access forgotten personal data. It’s his way of makin...more
ebook
Published
May 2012
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Kendall Barber is an Obituarist, a social media undertaker who cleans up the electronic trails of the deceased. Kendall’s day doesn’t start well. First he’s beaten up by a Hell’s Angel and told to stay away from Tonya Clemmens. The trouble is he’s never heard of her. Then Tonya herself arrives at his office – she wants Kendall to find her missing brother. Against his better judgement Kendall agrees and it’s then that things really start to go wrong as local maniac, D-Block and, worse, the police...more
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A proper detective novel grips you from the opening, drags you through the mud and rain-slick streets and makes you want to scream "Who did it? Which of these bastards did it?! What happened to that guy???!!!"
The Obituarist does all that and more. A brilliant piece in voice, structure, wit and mystery, every chapter ends with a punch in the gut moment - literally, in one case. The lead character isn't a detective - he's the titular obituarist, a specialist in cleaning up the online detritus left...more
The Obituarist does all that and more. A brilliant piece in voice, structure, wit and mystery, every chapter ends with a punch in the gut moment - literally, in one case. The lead character isn't a detective - he's the titular obituarist, a specialist in cleaning up the online detritus left...more
3 likes · like · see review
"We're all double and triple agents, and the only way to uncover everything is to wait until someone's too dead to keep hiding."
This novella covers something very dear to my heart: the very modern problem of handling a recently deceased person's "digital legacy" -- Facebook page, Twitter account, blogs, all the little straws that different services have poked into his online financial stream, etc. The titular character here specializes in that, a new employment niche for the 21st century.
This to...more
This novella covers something very dear to my heart: the very modern problem of handling a recently deceased person's "digital legacy" -- Facebook page, Twitter account, blogs, all the little straws that different services have poked into his online financial stream, etc. The titular character here specializes in that, a new employment niche for the 21st century.
This to...more
1 like · like · see review
Patrick O'Duffy's latest work is a swift, sharp crime story characterised by the well-placed combination of deadpan humour and self-awareness. Part homage to Raymond Chandler, part techno-satire, The Obituarist is narrated by Kendall Barber, a former criminal who now makes an honest living tidying up the online detritus of the recently deceased. Yet when his professional association with a mysterious client sees him mistaken for a detective, the world he thought he'd escaped comes rising back up...more
Patrick O'Duffy's novella the Obituarist is a great read that goes down smooth. His writing is delicately balanced - he writes in a style that evokes a time and place, without getting bogged down in details. He clearly understands the ins and outs of social media without fetishizing it, and has a knack for the choice of genre without feeling hackneyed.
I've been struggling for a good piece of fiction to read recently, but as soon as the Obituarist landed on the iPad, I devoured it from start to f...more
I've been struggling for a good piece of fiction to read recently, but as soon as the Obituarist landed on the iPad, I devoured it from start to f...more
More homage than pastiche, The Obituarist is a fast-paced and skillfully executed novella which draws on the golden age of crime fiction to strong effect.
There are a number of obvious dangers when following in these gilded footsepts – as O'Duffy concedes at the start of the book - but rather than clinging too closely to these well-worn conventions, The Obituarist co-opts the dynamics of the genre instead of relying on its tired old props.Yes there are bikers, hoodlums, wiseacre cops, secretive d...more
There are a number of obvious dangers when following in these gilded footsepts – as O'Duffy concedes at the start of the book - but rather than clinging too closely to these well-worn conventions, The Obituarist co-opts the dynamics of the genre instead of relying on its tired old props.Yes there are bikers, hoodlums, wiseacre cops, secretive d...more
Patrick O'Duffy's smart little crime novella 'The Obituarist' started from a cool character idea: someone who makes a living from methodically closing down the online presence of the recently deceased on behalf of their technologically-challenged bereaved, setting up memorials on their social media sites, removing their personal information and subscriptions and shutting down opportunities for the theft of their identities. O'Duffy could have gone almost anywhere with so solid a concept. He plum...more
The Obituarist is Patrick O’Duffy’s first crime novella. He’s a multitalented chap though, so check out his website.
The Tale
Kendall Barber is a social media undertaker with a shady past who's returned to the equally shady city of Port Virtue.
Now a new client brings with her a host of dangers, just as Kendall's past begins to catch up with him. Can he get to the bottom of things before it's too late, or will he end up as dead as his usual subjects?
What I liked
The idea of a social media undertaker...more
The Tale
Kendall Barber is a social media undertaker with a shady past who's returned to the equally shady city of Port Virtue.
Now a new client brings with her a host of dangers, just as Kendall's past begins to catch up with him. Can he get to the bottom of things before it's too late, or will he end up as dead as his usual subjects?
What I liked
The idea of a social media undertaker...more
The tale of a social media undertaker who gets involved with a number of circumstances is a great read and takes a neat turn into noir territory at the end.
It's so nice to encounter a nerdist crime story. A joy to read and a difficult one to put down.
I liked the story, it just finished too swiftly for me.
Great wit and a punchy, sharp writing style.
1 like · like · see review
Smart, witty and well written. Loved this book from start to finish. Hope we see more stories with Kendall Barber and Port Virtue.
May 28, 2013
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I write stories about weird stuff.
I'm very tall.
I swear more than is really necessary.
More about Patrick O'Duffy...
I'm very tall.
I swear more than is really necessary.
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