What Nigel Knew

by Evan Field

The meanest and the most powerful gossip columnist in the country is found strangled with his own typewriter ribbon in a screening room at the New York Film Festival. Whodunnit? The whole film community hated Nigel Whitty, and any one of the eleven people in the room with him at the time could easily have done him in - with great pleasure.

Genres: Mystery

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Susan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Movie critic and gossip columnist Nigel Whitty has a lot of enemies, even if you don't count the people he's blackmailing. So when he's found murdered in a showing at the New York Film Festival, everyone in the room with him is a suspect. Lieutenant Michael Connolly doesn't even like movies, but fortunately Nigel's recent hire, Sara Nightingale, is a movie buff with hair like Maureen O'Hara's, and a willingness to tell Connolly all. As Nigel's gal Friday (yes, this is a bit dated), Sara doesn't know as much as she wishes she did, but she knows enough to worry a number of the suspects, and certainly to tempt the murderer to get rid of her, too.

[Cindy · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was a DNF for me. Halfway through the book and I realized I DON’T CARE WHO KILLED NIGEL WHITTY!!!!

[Ryan Young · Rating 2 out of 5]

So, I figured for 10 cents at the thrift store this book couldn't be that bad. It wasn't. But it wasn't that good either. It had the distinction of being salacious without being interesting, vulgar without purpose, and filled with characters without development. Maybe this was groundbreaking literature in 1981, but now...it just seems lame.