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Rite Judgement: Heads Roll, Death And Insurrection
Heads roll. Corpses dance. People will believe what they want to believe. After Sister Winfrede, leader of the second violins in the famous Nun's Orchestra in Portsmouth, is found decapitated, both the police and the MI5 are called in to investigate. More bodies soon follow, but the deceased don't seem to stay dead. One of the victims, Bea Flat, is seemingly resurrected and ready to conduct the orchestra, and ominous signs tell of a connection to something sinister. Melding myth, legend and contemporary crime fiction, Rite Judgement is a story of good against evil, of mysterious events that you can never be sure actually happened, and above all of hope and the mind's capacity to believe anything that might make dreams come true. And in the middle of it all, Jack Austin and the DaDa Detective Agency.
360 pages, Paperback
Published October 22, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
February 26, 2024
Welcome to another chaotic secret operation, involving the surrealist DaDa Detective Agency, otherwise known as Dick and Duck, or Jack ‘Jane’ Austin and his lovely, long-suffering wife Mandy.
Pimple and Crumpet also return to aid our faux-retirees in attempting to put right the social wrongs of a corrupt, cabalistic, capitalist country… the UK.
There is, as usual, tone of punnery, wordplay and meta-cleverness masquerading under the slapstick silliness and saucy shenanigans. Pete Adams clearly has as much fun writing these books as I do reading them, and this one is his top- Kind Hearts and Martinets -form: bathwater, bonkings and barking-mad up the right tree (no mean feat for a one-eyed, old police dog!).
Along with the regular faces, you can expect unexpected decapitations; rollerskating nuns; Masonic hairdressers and builders; an Italian talking parrot; cameos from everyone else from Grace and Lilac to Father Mike and Aedd Murphy; pie threats and a perpetually dancing nun.
But, again, don’t be fooled by the surreal silliness and keep an eye out for some very serious underlying political and social messages. This author knows exactly how to walk the line between entertainment and education and does it with glee and a cheeky wink.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
Pimple and Crumpet also return to aid our faux-retirees in attempting to put right the social wrongs of a corrupt, cabalistic, capitalist country… the UK.
There is, as usual, tone of punnery, wordplay and meta-cleverness masquerading under the slapstick silliness and saucy shenanigans. Pete Adams clearly has as much fun writing these books as I do reading them, and this one is his top- Kind Hearts and Martinets -form: bathwater, bonkings and barking-mad up the right tree (no mean feat for a one-eyed, old police dog!).
Along with the regular faces, you can expect unexpected decapitations; rollerskating nuns; Masonic hairdressers and builders; an Italian talking parrot; cameos from everyone else from Grace and Lilac to Father Mike and Aedd Murphy; pie threats and a perpetually dancing nun.
But, again, don’t be fooled by the surreal silliness and keep an eye out for some very serious underlying political and social messages. This author knows exactly how to walk the line between entertainment and education and does it with glee and a cheeky wink.
Review by Steph Warren of Bookshine and Readbows blog
https://bookshineandreadbows.wordpres...
March 26, 2022
Spoilers: Pete Adams' Rite Judgement Heads Roll-Corpses Dance is the second book that I am reading this month that prefers to ignore the heart, slightly focus on the head, but heads straight for the funny bone. However, this and Lakshmi and The River of Truth take different approaches in their pursuit of laughter.
Lakshmi and The River of Truth was a savage biting political satire disguised as a fantasy. The satire is obvious as various characters and situations in this dream world are intentional parodies of people and events surrounding the real world.
Rite Judgement's humor is less abrupt and more fanciful and whimsical. While there are some satirical moments and hidden important themes, the characters and situations are absurd and farcical. There isn't as much of a recognizable plot as there are excuses to throw a bunch of odd silly things together to create a whole book that focuses on the silliness and bury important messages inside of it.. Let's put it this way, if Lakshmi and The River of Truth is Saturday Night Live, then Rite Judgement Heads Roll-Corpses Dance is Monty Python's Flying Circus. No one is better than the other. Both are hilarious, they just have different ways of making people laugh.
The main characters in Rite Judgement are former Police Detective Jack "Jane" Austen and his wife former Detective Superintendent Amanda "Mandy" Austen. Even though they are retired, they still thirst for adventure. That's why they formed the DaDa Detective Agency named for their other nicknames "Dick" for Jack (which Mandy jokes is perfect for him) and "Duck" for Mandy (which she objects to because she is not a bird and even if she were "why a f$#@_&g duck?").
The duo's latest case involves the appearance of St. Winifred, a martyred saint who has reappeared in modern day sans head. (Her head is on a conductor's stand.) As if it wasn't weird enough, the saint plays the violin and dances even though she's headless.
Then there's a religious group called Umble Pie who is less than umble because they seem to be overly involved with the British government. There is also an actor posing as the Pope when the real deal ends up missing, a parrot that speaks Italian, and a goofy politician with the name of Pimple (yes you read that right) and his wife Crumpet. If you squint, you might be able to put these weird situations together and find a coherent plot.
The focus of the book is less on plot and more on tone.Situations happen that are too broad to be believable and the stabs at mystery solving are more resolved through contrived coincidence than any form of detection.
In fact the main couple, Jack and Mandy Austen's disagreements and personal digs towards each other make them seem more like a sitcom couple than a pair of detectives. Jack is a pompous twit and Mandy's sarcasm brings him down to Earth. Think less Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth from Bones and more Ray and Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond uh with deductive reasoning and a license to investigate criminal activity of course.
Besides the humor of the bickering pair of crime solvers, the whole point of the book is not to have a straightforward mystery. Things don't have a linear structure. Conversations and incidents take place that have no real bearing in the overall narrative.
The clue of the overall tone of the book is in the name, The DaDa Detective Agency. The name is a reference to the Dada Art Movement that began after WWI. Those involved with the movement rejected logic, aesthetics, and reason and embraced nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois views in their works. Even the name itself was coined by using a baby's words evoking childishness and absurdity.
The works included collages, sound poetry, cut up writing, and sculpture.
Artists in the movement included Hugo Ball, Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch, and Beatrice Wood among others.
Dadaism was an influence on later movements like Surrealism, Abstract Art, Avant Garde, Pop Art, Nouveau Realism, and others. Chances are if it's a weird way of looking at the world, the Dadaists made it.
Rite Judgement is right in the Dadaist style. A headless dancing corpse is treated not as a miracle but more like a money making opportunity and a booking on reality television. It's a ridiculous moment made even more ridiculous because of the behavior of the people around it.
There are groups of Holy Hairdressers and another group called Fishers of Men (which the narrative tells us "does exactly what it says on the can.") Of course it's hard to take seriously an organization that controls everything called Umble Pie.
If there is a point, Rite Judgement is mocking religious institutions and society's dependence on them. It also mocks how those institutions exploit their symbols with the intentions of gaining money, followers, and governmental power. The book just does it in a way that plays the laughs before the message.
There is another theme that is more subtle than religious exploitation: that of class conflict. There is a constant allusion to spring throughout the book, which heralds new beginnings, rebirth, and awakening from what is considered cold and dead.
The Arab Spring anti-government uprisings in the Arab World, a grassroots campaign that was spread throughout social media, in the early 2010's is referred to.
Igor Stravinsky's composition Rite of Spring keeps coming in and out of the book like a motif. The composition was a ballet depicting primitive people engaging a ritual sacrifice on a young maiden. (Fans of Disney's Fantasia may remember the composition in the animated segment depicting the evolution of Earth from the formation of the land to the death of the dinosaurs.)
Reportedly, the Rite of Spring ballet was so controversial that riots broke out in protest and defense of it. Stravinsky's music was favored by many revolutionaries and considered the music of the Russian Revolution.
The motif of Rite of Spring adds to the subtle theme of earlier conventions passing away and dying out to make way for newer ideals. That older constraints like class distinction, religious schisms, and oligarchy politics are not working. If they aren't working, then the book suggests that the way must be made for something new. A return to spring if you will.
All of this is hidden inside a book with a headless dancing saint.
Lakshmi and The River of Truth was a savage biting political satire disguised as a fantasy. The satire is obvious as various characters and situations in this dream world are intentional parodies of people and events surrounding the real world.
Rite Judgement's humor is less abrupt and more fanciful and whimsical. While there are some satirical moments and hidden important themes, the characters and situations are absurd and farcical. There isn't as much of a recognizable plot as there are excuses to throw a bunch of odd silly things together to create a whole book that focuses on the silliness and bury important messages inside of it.. Let's put it this way, if Lakshmi and The River of Truth is Saturday Night Live, then Rite Judgement Heads Roll-Corpses Dance is Monty Python's Flying Circus. No one is better than the other. Both are hilarious, they just have different ways of making people laugh.
The main characters in Rite Judgement are former Police Detective Jack "Jane" Austen and his wife former Detective Superintendent Amanda "Mandy" Austen. Even though they are retired, they still thirst for adventure. That's why they formed the DaDa Detective Agency named for their other nicknames "Dick" for Jack (which Mandy jokes is perfect for him) and "Duck" for Mandy (which she objects to because she is not a bird and even if she were "why a f$#@_&g duck?").
The duo's latest case involves the appearance of St. Winifred, a martyred saint who has reappeared in modern day sans head. (Her head is on a conductor's stand.) As if it wasn't weird enough, the saint plays the violin and dances even though she's headless.
Then there's a religious group called Umble Pie who is less than umble because they seem to be overly involved with the British government. There is also an actor posing as the Pope when the real deal ends up missing, a parrot that speaks Italian, and a goofy politician with the name of Pimple (yes you read that right) and his wife Crumpet. If you squint, you might be able to put these weird situations together and find a coherent plot.
The focus of the book is less on plot and more on tone.Situations happen that are too broad to be believable and the stabs at mystery solving are more resolved through contrived coincidence than any form of detection.
In fact the main couple, Jack and Mandy Austen's disagreements and personal digs towards each other make them seem more like a sitcom couple than a pair of detectives. Jack is a pompous twit and Mandy's sarcasm brings him down to Earth. Think less Temperance Brennan and Seeley Booth from Bones and more Ray and Debra Barone from Everybody Loves Raymond uh with deductive reasoning and a license to investigate criminal activity of course.
Besides the humor of the bickering pair of crime solvers, the whole point of the book is not to have a straightforward mystery. Things don't have a linear structure. Conversations and incidents take place that have no real bearing in the overall narrative.
The clue of the overall tone of the book is in the name, The DaDa Detective Agency. The name is a reference to the Dada Art Movement that began after WWI. Those involved with the movement rejected logic, aesthetics, and reason and embraced nonsense, irrationality, and anti-bourgeois views in their works. Even the name itself was coined by using a baby's words evoking childishness and absurdity.
The works included collages, sound poetry, cut up writing, and sculpture.
Artists in the movement included Hugo Ball, Max Ernst, Hannah Hoch, and Beatrice Wood among others.
Dadaism was an influence on later movements like Surrealism, Abstract Art, Avant Garde, Pop Art, Nouveau Realism, and others. Chances are if it's a weird way of looking at the world, the Dadaists made it.
Rite Judgement is right in the Dadaist style. A headless dancing corpse is treated not as a miracle but more like a money making opportunity and a booking on reality television. It's a ridiculous moment made even more ridiculous because of the behavior of the people around it.
There are groups of Holy Hairdressers and another group called Fishers of Men (which the narrative tells us "does exactly what it says on the can.") Of course it's hard to take seriously an organization that controls everything called Umble Pie.
If there is a point, Rite Judgement is mocking religious institutions and society's dependence on them. It also mocks how those institutions exploit their symbols with the intentions of gaining money, followers, and governmental power. The book just does it in a way that plays the laughs before the message.
There is another theme that is more subtle than religious exploitation: that of class conflict. There is a constant allusion to spring throughout the book, which heralds new beginnings, rebirth, and awakening from what is considered cold and dead.
The Arab Spring anti-government uprisings in the Arab World, a grassroots campaign that was spread throughout social media, in the early 2010's is referred to.
Igor Stravinsky's composition Rite of Spring keeps coming in and out of the book like a motif. The composition was a ballet depicting primitive people engaging a ritual sacrifice on a young maiden. (Fans of Disney's Fantasia may remember the composition in the animated segment depicting the evolution of Earth from the formation of the land to the death of the dinosaurs.)
Reportedly, the Rite of Spring ballet was so controversial that riots broke out in protest and defense of it. Stravinsky's music was favored by many revolutionaries and considered the music of the Russian Revolution.
The motif of Rite of Spring adds to the subtle theme of earlier conventions passing away and dying out to make way for newer ideals. That older constraints like class distinction, religious schisms, and oligarchy politics are not working. If they aren't working, then the book suggests that the way must be made for something new. A return to spring if you will.
All of this is hidden inside a book with a headless dancing saint.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 28, 2022
A few months ago, a publicist introduced me to the whimsical, socially conscious, quick-witted work and worlds of the novelist Pete Adams. John Broughton describes him as “the Salvador Dali of thriller writers,” a description I mention because it is so fitting. Two writers that also come to mind are James Joyce (Finnegan’s Wake and Ulysses), and Robert Anton Wilson and his Illuminatus series, although reading his Cosmic Trigger books will also give you a sense of the lineage of which Pete Adams is a part, especially when it comes to the corruption of the international banking cabal.
The front matter describes Rite Judgement as “A politically correct / incorrect, risqué, mischievous, irreverent and, ever so naughty, crime mystery thriller. A real / surreal novel where life imitates art.” Quite a mouthful, and quite correct. Following on the heels of this quote is one from André Breton: “The imaginary is what tends to become real.” This is a form of spelling, or using words and the power of the mind in the form of poetry and prose, incantations, mantras, and the like to speak a new world into existence. After all, as we good (many now lapsed) Catholics and other religious types grew up hearing, and many still believe, in the beginning was the Logos… the Word. Which makes Trickster-Holy Storytellers like Adams invaluable to society indeed.
Still with me? I warn you, even more so than the book I read and reviewed a few months ago—Dead No More, from another of Adams’s series—the wit, metaphors, and action in Rite Judgement unroll at a very brisk pace. It is easy to get lost in the dense forest of words and images. There are plays on words, abundant cultural and political references, and rich social commentary. Therefore, Adams richly rewards those rare polymaths versed in history, art, and psychology, as so obviously is he.
But please don’t get me wrong—I highly recommend this book, as I did Dead No More. I believe that artists are well within their rights to make us work a little in our engagement with their art, especially when the art is no less than a new vision for the world.
If you are a fan of Paul Christopher, Dan Brown, and David Baldacci, imagine if they did not take themselves quite so seriously, so their stories were purposefully corny and outsized, rather than mistakenly so.
Rite Judgement (even the title is word play) is an echo of and metaphor for Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Adams, at the end of the book, lays out how the metaphor works. He suggests that you do not read the explanation until after you’ve read the novel, but if you begin, and you feel lost, it is worth a read, which you can use as a kind of skeleton key, the way Joseph Campbell gave us one for Joyce’s Finnigan’s Wake.
The book opens with the decapitation of a nun who is a member of an all-nun’s orchestra. Her head is found next to the score of Rite of Spring, and we are quickly off to the races, meeting a janitor called Ernest Pugh (called Blind Pugh) and “the Duchess of Frisian Tun [who] was none other than the notorious London transvestite gangster and socialite, Mad Frankie the axeman.” Another member of the orchestra is called Bea Flat.
Enter the journalists and police, some of whom appear in Dead No More. Although there are several series, they all belong to the same world and Adams cues the reader when necessary to references in other books; he is also perfectly at ease breaking the fourth wall to tell you other things and make a pointed comment; it’s all quite natural when he does so, so enjoy it.
With names like Cecelia Crumpet and Everard Pimple for the journalists and Dick and Duck Austin for the police (owners of Da Da Detective Agency), you are consistently reminded that you are in a surrealist world where tired tropes are wonderfully, whimsically subverted. Adding to the fun are parodic characters from MI5, Vatican Intelligence, and No. 10 Downing Street. Adams even has a version of the Illuminati called the Illusionati, and the players that constellate around it remind me of distorted versions in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and Baudolino, especially the Priest-Finder General Liberato Zondo who reminds me also of Count Alessandro Cagliostro. There’s a very odd pope named Siderney (aka Fabio Sid Smith), who just might qualify as the oddest of the odd in Adams’s cast of oddballs.
There are bankers (one named Justin Thyme), politicians, and theologians. There is also a sect of the “real” Masons who go by the alternate name of The British Order of Orthodox Bricklayers (Boobs)—who are better than the “other bunch of Tits” who are the “other Masons.”
A highlight of the book is the flat of Aedd Murphy, a geography teacher from a family of cartographers and the like. With a map of the world printed large upon the walls, as Aedd and visitors move through the flat, the geography informs the scene and the story on numerous levels.
As things get downright supernatural (and boy do they ever—two characters that become prominent in the second half are a horse and a parrot), the three Abrahamic religions all send in their representatives to have their say and protect their brand. Out of this comes another of the author’s witty organizational names/acronyms: a “Christian group of the Coptic Orthodox Nile Synod (the CONS: a form of reactionary, counter-revolutionary, Church of Egypt Tory party).” I’ll give you one more—you’ll have to find the rest, like Easter Eggs, on your own: “The Barbaras [of Seville, who] were barbers but with a barbaric streak. They were a modern day incarnation of the Spanish Inquisition but on roller skates.” If you think for a moment about the absurdity of the organizations for whom Adams’s are simulacra, it all makes perfect sense.
Not to leave out the multinational corporations who really run the show, Adams includes a company called Ma-Santi (a riff on the agro-evil They Who Shall Not Be Named, who, taking a page from Satan, actually underwent a name change so the sheeple believe they no longer exist) centered in the financial heart of England, the City of London. There’s also a fracking company named Godzilla (I particularly love that last one, having seen firsthand what the fracking industry has done in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including feeling my bed move beneath me when a fracking-caused earthquake damaged the Washington Monument). In the case of the latter, the author gets rather blunt: “They had no feeling for social justice or fairness. How could you if your focus was on maximising profit?”
Come for the absurdity, stay for the profundity. Robert Anton Wilson will be smiling from his celestial writing room if you do.
The front matter describes Rite Judgement as “A politically correct / incorrect, risqué, mischievous, irreverent and, ever so naughty, crime mystery thriller. A real / surreal novel where life imitates art.” Quite a mouthful, and quite correct. Following on the heels of this quote is one from André Breton: “The imaginary is what tends to become real.” This is a form of spelling, or using words and the power of the mind in the form of poetry and prose, incantations, mantras, and the like to speak a new world into existence. After all, as we good (many now lapsed) Catholics and other religious types grew up hearing, and many still believe, in the beginning was the Logos… the Word. Which makes Trickster-Holy Storytellers like Adams invaluable to society indeed.
Still with me? I warn you, even more so than the book I read and reviewed a few months ago—Dead No More, from another of Adams’s series—the wit, metaphors, and action in Rite Judgement unroll at a very brisk pace. It is easy to get lost in the dense forest of words and images. There are plays on words, abundant cultural and political references, and rich social commentary. Therefore, Adams richly rewards those rare polymaths versed in history, art, and psychology, as so obviously is he.
But please don’t get me wrong—I highly recommend this book, as I did Dead No More. I believe that artists are well within their rights to make us work a little in our engagement with their art, especially when the art is no less than a new vision for the world.
If you are a fan of Paul Christopher, Dan Brown, and David Baldacci, imagine if they did not take themselves quite so seriously, so their stories were purposefully corny and outsized, rather than mistakenly so.
Rite Judgement (even the title is word play) is an echo of and metaphor for Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring. Adams, at the end of the book, lays out how the metaphor works. He suggests that you do not read the explanation until after you’ve read the novel, but if you begin, and you feel lost, it is worth a read, which you can use as a kind of skeleton key, the way Joseph Campbell gave us one for Joyce’s Finnigan’s Wake.
The book opens with the decapitation of a nun who is a member of an all-nun’s orchestra. Her head is found next to the score of Rite of Spring, and we are quickly off to the races, meeting a janitor called Ernest Pugh (called Blind Pugh) and “the Duchess of Frisian Tun [who] was none other than the notorious London transvestite gangster and socialite, Mad Frankie the axeman.” Another member of the orchestra is called Bea Flat.
Enter the journalists and police, some of whom appear in Dead No More. Although there are several series, they all belong to the same world and Adams cues the reader when necessary to references in other books; he is also perfectly at ease breaking the fourth wall to tell you other things and make a pointed comment; it’s all quite natural when he does so, so enjoy it.
With names like Cecelia Crumpet and Everard Pimple for the journalists and Dick and Duck Austin for the police (owners of Da Da Detective Agency), you are consistently reminded that you are in a surrealist world where tired tropes are wonderfully, whimsically subverted. Adding to the fun are parodic characters from MI5, Vatican Intelligence, and No. 10 Downing Street. Adams even has a version of the Illuminati called the Illusionati, and the players that constellate around it remind me of distorted versions in Umberto Eco’s Foucault’s Pendulum and Baudolino, especially the Priest-Finder General Liberato Zondo who reminds me also of Count Alessandro Cagliostro. There’s a very odd pope named Siderney (aka Fabio Sid Smith), who just might qualify as the oddest of the odd in Adams’s cast of oddballs.
There are bankers (one named Justin Thyme), politicians, and theologians. There is also a sect of the “real” Masons who go by the alternate name of The British Order of Orthodox Bricklayers (Boobs)—who are better than the “other bunch of Tits” who are the “other Masons.”
A highlight of the book is the flat of Aedd Murphy, a geography teacher from a family of cartographers and the like. With a map of the world printed large upon the walls, as Aedd and visitors move through the flat, the geography informs the scene and the story on numerous levels.
As things get downright supernatural (and boy do they ever—two characters that become prominent in the second half are a horse and a parrot), the three Abrahamic religions all send in their representatives to have their say and protect their brand. Out of this comes another of the author’s witty organizational names/acronyms: a “Christian group of the Coptic Orthodox Nile Synod (the CONS: a form of reactionary, counter-revolutionary, Church of Egypt Tory party).” I’ll give you one more—you’ll have to find the rest, like Easter Eggs, on your own: “The Barbaras [of Seville, who] were barbers but with a barbaric streak. They were a modern day incarnation of the Spanish Inquisition but on roller skates.” If you think for a moment about the absurdity of the organizations for whom Adams’s are simulacra, it all makes perfect sense.
Not to leave out the multinational corporations who really run the show, Adams includes a company called Ma-Santi (a riff on the agro-evil They Who Shall Not Be Named, who, taking a page from Satan, actually underwent a name change so the sheeple believe they no longer exist) centered in the financial heart of England, the City of London. There’s also a fracking company named Godzilla (I particularly love that last one, having seen firsthand what the fracking industry has done in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, including feeling my bed move beneath me when a fracking-caused earthquake damaged the Washington Monument). In the case of the latter, the author gets rather blunt: “They had no feeling for social justice or fairness. How could you if your focus was on maximising profit?”
Come for the absurdity, stay for the profundity. Robert Anton Wilson will be smiling from his celestial writing room if you do.
March 27, 2022
I haven’t read the first in the series but there is a partial explanation at the start of this book & plenty of asides as you read to keep you in the loop; so, yes, it can be read as a standalone.
Lots of laughs, some at very inappropriate things, & a quirky writing style keeps you reading & guessing right to the end of this DaDa detective agency thriller.
The plot wanders all over the place, with crazy goings-on & even crazier characters. Dick & Duck, Pimple & Crumpet, the non-Pope & a dancing headless nun are just a few.
Politics, religion & corruption in various walks of life, all raise their ugly head. And to be honest, my brain was a bit scrambled trying to keep track of all the groups & their subliminal messages.
If you’re looking for a read akin to Spike Milligan’s or Monty Python’s way of thinking then this is it. I’m still trying to work some of it out. Recommended.
Lots of laughs, some at very inappropriate things, & a quirky writing style keeps you reading & guessing right to the end of this DaDa detective agency thriller.
The plot wanders all over the place, with crazy goings-on & even crazier characters. Dick & Duck, Pimple & Crumpet, the non-Pope & a dancing headless nun are just a few.
Politics, religion & corruption in various walks of life, all raise their ugly head. And to be honest, my brain was a bit scrambled trying to keep track of all the groups & their subliminal messages.
If you’re looking for a read akin to Spike Milligan’s or Monty Python’s way of thinking then this is it. I’m still trying to work some of it out. Recommended.
March 3, 2022
Well, what can one say? Pete Adams has pulled the rabbit out of the hat once again. This is an amusing tale with plenty of laughs and suspense to keep you glued to whichever piece of furniture you find yourself on when you start. It is great to see the return of the DaDa detective agency.
This is a must for all thriller enthusiasts. A great novel, a brilliant story. Another hit for the maestro.
This is a must for all thriller enthusiasts. A great novel, a brilliant story. Another hit for the maestro.
March 28, 2022
Ominous and quite intriguing
What a frightfully grand story in Rite Judgement by Pete Adams. I am a definite fan of this author! Whatever this author writes, I want to read. This author has a great imagination and I'm glad it's being shared with stories. The story brings in the believable, even if almost impossible. Oh, it's not just about the dead, and there is no such thing as last rites, as the dead come to life. Sometimes things happen that can't be explained, and when that happens, we may not want them explained. Believing is seeing, and this book has a plot that is full of darkness, yet there is lightness and not only fighting good versus evil, but it's almost as one has been visited by the devil, himself, or he sent someone in his place! This author brings the story (and murdered corpses) to life. It is a very well-written plot, and I enjoyed it. This read is more than just words on a page. I will definitely add more of this author's books to my bookshelf. Rite Judgement is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews.
What a frightfully grand story in Rite Judgement by Pete Adams. I am a definite fan of this author! Whatever this author writes, I want to read. This author has a great imagination and I'm glad it's being shared with stories. The story brings in the believable, even if almost impossible. Oh, it's not just about the dead, and there is no such thing as last rites, as the dead come to life. Sometimes things happen that can't be explained, and when that happens, we may not want them explained. Believing is seeing, and this book has a plot that is full of darkness, yet there is lightness and not only fighting good versus evil, but it's almost as one has been visited by the devil, himself, or he sent someone in his place! This author brings the story (and murdered corpses) to life. It is a very well-written plot, and I enjoyed it. This read is more than just words on a page. I will definitely add more of this author's books to my bookshelf. Rite Judgement is a definite recommendation by Amy's Bookshelf Reviews.
March 28, 2022
I think I may be the target audience for this book - raised on Monty Python, Spike Milligan and the Goons, with a fair bit of Salvadore Dali thrown in; interested in the British establishment and its foibles; left leaning to the point of frequently falling over. The story, masquerading as some kind of crime thriller, revels in its own silliness, and throws in daft names, crazy conceits, absurd situations, almost as if the tradition of the sixth form review or the boyscout jamboree were going out of fashion... If your background is different you may be a bit baffled by this book, but read on, let yourself float on the sea of Pete Adams' surreal imagination. Beneath all the knockabout madness there are lots of political, artistic, literary references you can pick up like bits of a crossword puzzle. And there is, almost, a bit of a message. Anyway, just read and enjoy. You'll come out of it not knowing quite where you've been, but possibly feeling quite refreshed.
October 5, 2025
Well I must say Pete Adams has not taken his foot off the gas with Rite Judgement - his most recent offering in the DaDa detective series. I say detective series, this is high octane George Orwell, meets Dan Brown, meets Eric Idle, meets, well, Pete Adams.
Zany, quirky, complex, and daft, we follow our hero Jane (Jack/Dick) Austen (a few shillings short of a picnic) as he sleuths the case of temporary suicide, as a nun carefully (and temporarily) detaches her own head, before placing it neatly (except for the blood as messy as a plate of umble) on the conductor’s orchestral lectern. To tell the story, Mr Adams uses a bus load of inspectors, conductors, hilariously applied cockerny slang and natty idioms (historically correctly presented).
But these are menacing times as Britain faces the Anglo-Saxon spring (a bit like the Arab spring, but with less Arabs and more hairdressers) and plots are afoot.
One day, Pete Adams must run out of daftness and zane. But it hasn’t happened yet. A total hoot and highly recommended!
Ps. Set in my hometown of Portsmouth, where nuns regularly get up to no good.
Zany, quirky, complex, and daft, we follow our hero Jane (Jack/Dick) Austen (a few shillings short of a picnic) as he sleuths the case of temporary suicide, as a nun carefully (and temporarily) detaches her own head, before placing it neatly (except for the blood as messy as a plate of umble) on the conductor’s orchestral lectern. To tell the story, Mr Adams uses a bus load of inspectors, conductors, hilariously applied cockerny slang and natty idioms (historically correctly presented).
But these are menacing times as Britain faces the Anglo-Saxon spring (a bit like the Arab spring, but with less Arabs and more hairdressers) and plots are afoot.
One day, Pete Adams must run out of daftness and zane. But it hasn’t happened yet. A total hoot and highly recommended!
Ps. Set in my hometown of Portsmouth, where nuns regularly get up to no good.
January 7, 2022
A prudent conceit recognized through ancestors is not lacking in wealth. And, they are convinced they know best while playing risky games that bring on timely consequences.
Sister Winfrede, in a nun’s orchestra and a geography teacher at the Winfrede’s Roman Catholic Convent school was found in a pool of sacrificial blood. M15 and the law enforcement agency are summoned to the case of her beheading. Later, additional people are found dead—but wait—why are they showing up alive? Something menacing is lurking beneath the surface in this mystery.
The DaDa Detective Agency and Jack Austin are in the eye of the storm when it comes to combining parables and urban tales strewed throughout this mind-bending crime drama.
There is an ambush of action that does not stop in Pete Adam’s newest release, ‘Rite Judgement.’ If you like tales of the darkest parts of mortality then check this one out. Pete has written a five-star thriller that will have you shaking your head and even laughing at times!
Though it is the sequel to Road Kill it can be a stand-alone novel but get Road Kill first if you want the entire story.
Sister Winfrede, in a nun’s orchestra and a geography teacher at the Winfrede’s Roman Catholic Convent school was found in a pool of sacrificial blood. M15 and the law enforcement agency are summoned to the case of her beheading. Later, additional people are found dead—but wait—why are they showing up alive? Something menacing is lurking beneath the surface in this mystery.
The DaDa Detective Agency and Jack Austin are in the eye of the storm when it comes to combining parables and urban tales strewed throughout this mind-bending crime drama.
There is an ambush of action that does not stop in Pete Adam’s newest release, ‘Rite Judgement.’ If you like tales of the darkest parts of mortality then check this one out. Pete has written a five-star thriller that will have you shaking your head and even laughing at times!
Though it is the sequel to Road Kill it can be a stand-alone novel but get Road Kill first if you want the entire story.
April 21, 2022
I am always on the lookout for another book by this author, as Pete Adams never fails to deliver a great read. I absolutely love the way he writes his characters and the story packs a punch every time. Jack Austin is such a brilliant character, but my favourite is his wife, Mandy. These books are full of fun, surprises and serious storylines that you don't always expect because the writing is so beguiling and it often makes you laugh when the topics are quite serious. The story keeps you turning page after page and if you love crime capers and absolute mayhem, all wrapped up beautifully in a well written story, you will be in for a real treat!
I have already read most of this author's books, but am always waiting to see what he brings out next. Grab a copy. You won't be disappointed.
I have already read most of this author's books, but am always waiting to see what he brings out next. Grab a copy. You won't be disappointed.
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