Dead Famous

by Ben Elton

One house, ten contestants, 30 cameras and 40 microphones. Another televised, real-life soap opera, House Arrest. Everyone knows the rules: total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Only this time they're asking: who is the murderer?

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Mystery, Crime, Comedy, Contemporary, Thriller

352 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Ben Elton was born on 3 May 1959, in Catford, South London. The youngest of four, he went to Godalming Grammar school, joined amateur dramatic societies and wrote his first play at 15. He wanted to be a stagehand at the local theatre, but instead did A-Level Theatre Studies and studied drama at Manchester University in 1977.

His career as both performer and writer encompasses some of the most memorable and incisive comedy of the past twenty years. His ground breaking work as a TV stand-up comedian set the (high) standard of what was to follow. He has received accolades for his hit TV sit-coms, The Young Ones, Blackadder and The Thin Blue Line.

More recently he has had successes with three hit West End musicals, including the global phenomenon We Will Rock You. He has written three plays for the London stage, including the multi-award-winning Popcorn. Ben's international bestselling novels include Stark, Inconceivable, Dead Famous and High Society. He won the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award for the novel Popcorn.

Elton lives in Perth with his Aussie wife Sophie and three children.

Reviews

[Adina · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was an interesting mystery novel set in a big brother type reality shows. It shows how far can some people go for fame (i.e. murder).

[Michelle · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the most British book I've ever read.

Introducing House Arrest, a reality show where the general public is locked in a house for a couple of months for a prize of half a million pounds (basically the same format as Big Brother).

Day 27 starts like any other until one of the housemates is murdered live on the Internet feed. Who's responsible? The house is full of cameras, so this has to be an easy plot to solve. Right?

The characters and the dialogue here are the worst the UK has to offer. The whole thing made me cringe, but I could not put this book down. The same reaction I have every time I watch a reality show. The second-hand embarrassment is real.

I enjoy this a lot. The only criticism I have is that I felt the conclusion was too drawn out.

Four stars.

[Karschtl · Rating 5 out of 5]

The cover says: "One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor."
You think: Big Brother? You're right. Here it's called "House Arrest", produced by "Peeping Tom Productions".

You know from the beginning that one of the inmates will be killed on day 27. But you have to wait until page 200 to find out who will it be and how. Normally you would think that a murder in a house full of cameras is easy to solve - cause the whole thing must be on video. But it is possible, which makes work for the police detective quite complicated, especially after he finds out that several ppl would have had a good motive.

The end is very surprising, I wouldn't have bet on this killer. And the book is also a good book about manipulation IN as well as THROUGH television.

[Cass · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am laying in bed, wedged firmly in between my two sleeping daughters (and one husband) desperately wishing I owned this book in ebook form.

Alas, I bought the hard copy and it is sitting in the lounge room where it will have to remain, unfinished, until tomorrow.

Can you tell I have enjoyed the book.

I have heard it said that Ben Elton becomes repetitive in his books. I have to agree, but I enjoy it, I love it. He has a way of mocking types of people by caricaturing them in his writing. He makes them overexcited, over zealous, amped, singular, unable to see past their own needs. This theme has carried through all three books that I have read... But I still enjoy it.

This particular story follows the police investigation of a murder in a "Big Brother" style television house. The story opens with the investigation underway as the detective-in-charge is familiarising himself with the contestants of the house, the suspects. It is a who-dunit with a twist, it isn't until half way through the book that we, the reader, learn exactly who was murdered and how they managed to do it under the gaze of cameras, producers, technicians, and a live Internet feed.

I can't wait to find out the end... Okay I can wait, but barely, and only because I have to get up early.

Ben Elton writes stories that are incredibly engaging, I love his caricatures. I am a fan of his books, and this book is no exception.

[Tanja Berg · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ten contestants are put in a "big brother" style house, participants in a TV program called "House Arrest". After a while one of the candidates gets murdered. We know this from the first page, but who gets killed isn't revealed until half-way through. Despite the cameras it's not obvious who the killer is.

The characters are vivid and realistic. The house mates all have strategy to win the half million pound money prize for various reasons. They all want fame and to advance their careers in TV or as actors. The question is who would go as far as murder? The exploitation of them is obvious, but they are willing players.

I thoroughly enjoyed this!

[Heather Stansfield · Rating 1 out of 5]

The first third of the book is the least gripping thing I have ever read. I only carried on due to the acclaim Ben Elton has received from my friends and parents. Every time I thought the book started to get better, it just seemed to drag on for more time than it should have. I thought the lead up to the end was tense and I genuinely wanted to know what happened. The ending would have worked for me if Elton hadn't thrown in some weird way in which it was possible for the killer to commit the murder. On top of myself not being able to enjoy the plot, the dialogue in which Elton is trying to portray the younger generation could not be further from how people actually talked. It made the whole book feel even more fake and tacky and showed that the book was just an attempt for Elton to show his own opinions of the young people who would do anything for fame.

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Big Brother style reality game show.. a savage murder committed on live feed seen by millions of people! Old school police Coleridge and his team strive to uncover the murder as millions watch, read and listen with bated breath! A great Elton expose on reality TV, the masses, the quest for fame and people's prejudices... which is much more captivating mystery, than side splitting comedy. 7 out of 12.

[Olga Godim]

I seldom like books written by male writers. They are usually emotionally distant, and this book was no exception. Just the opposite, it’s so distant that there was no protagonist. I didn’t care for anyone in this book. It’s supposed to be a murder mystery, but by page 69, when I stopped reading, I still didn’t know who was murdered. Why should I care?
The story follows two plotlines. The first plotline is a filming of an imaginary reality TV show House Arrest. Ten people are trapped in one small house for several weeks, and the cameras and microphones cover every square inch of the house, following the housemates everywhere 24 hours a day, even to the shower and toilet.
The second plotline is the murder investigation. One of the housemates has been murdered on the day 27 of the filming. The detective crew watches the footage of the show, trying to find some clues, but no tape recorded the murder. How is it possible? Who is the murderer?
Strangely, while I didn’t care for anyone in the novel, I fell in love with the writer. He is a clever, sarcastic guy, and his opinion of reality TV and people in general, biting and disdainful of the blown-up celebrities, is expressed by the lead detective on the case, Chief Inspector Coleridge. The novel is immensely quotable, and I couldn’t resist quoting some of it here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He was old fashioned because he was interested in things other than astrology and celebrity. … The fact that it had fallen to Coleridge to watch the entire available footage of House Arrest, to sit and watch a group of pointless twenty-something living in a house together and subjected to constant video surveillance, was a cruel joke indeed. It was safe to say that under normal circumstances there was no other show in the history of television that Coleridge would have been less inclined to watch than House Arrest.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Coleridge wondered if he was the only person in the world who felt so completely culturally disenfranchised. Or were there others like him? Living secret lives, skulking in the shadows, scared to open their mouths for fear of exposure. People who no longer understood the adverts, let alone the programs.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Coleridge:] ‘Why do these people feel the need to define themselves by their preferences in bed?’
‘Well, if they didn’t talk about it, sir, you wouldn’t know, would you?’
‘But why do I need to know?’
‘Because otherwise you would presume they were straight.’
‘If by that you mean heterosexual, I wouldn’t presume any such thing, constable. I wouldn’t think about it at all.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
[Coleridge:] ‘Not much more than two generations ago the entire population of this country stood in the shadow of imminent brutal occupation by a crowd of murdering Nazis! A generation before that we lost a million boys in the trenches. A million innocent lads. Now we have “therapists” studying the “trauma” of getting thrown of a television game show. Sometimes I despair, I really do, you know. I despair.’
‘Yes, but sir,’ Trisha said, ‘in the war and stuff people had something to stand up for, something to believe in. These days there isn’t anything for us to believe in very much. Does that make our anxieties and pain any less relevant?’
‘Yes, it does!’ Coleridge stopped himself before he could say any more.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
‘House Arrest is basically fiction,’ said Fogarty [the show editor]… ‘Like all TV and film. It’s built in the edit.’
‘You manipulate the housemates’ images?’
‘Well, obviously. … People are basically dull. We have to make them interesting, turn them into heroes and villains.’
‘I thought you were supposed to be observers, that the whole thing was an experiment in social interaction?’
‘Look, constable,’ Fogarty explained patiently, ‘in order to create a nightly half-hour of broadcasting we have at our disposal the accumulated images of thirty television cameras running for twenty four hours. That’s seven hundred and twenty hours of footage to make one half-hour of television. We couldn’t avoid making subjective decisions even if we wanted to. The thing that amazes us is that the nation believes what we show them. They actually accept that what they are watching is real.’
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The writer feels contemptuous of the stupid and the banal, and I happen to agree with his point of view; I never watch reality TV for this very reason. It selects dunces as its protagonists and targets dunces as its audience. But even our common opinion wasn’t enough for me to care about anyone in this book. Hence, DNF and no rating.

[Marco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Telly from the hip and for the hip! Classic murder mystery meets Big Brother; a real-life whodunit. And not just that. For quite some time the identity of the victim is a fookin' mystery as well. Hell, you barely get an idea of what, where and how it happened.

One house, ten contestants, and all fahkin' idiots in one way or another. Colorful bunch. Inspector Coleridge couldn't have gotten a worse case. The type of guy who was born old. Today's youth is as much a mystery to him as who did it. His amazement, his observations; hilarious. Geraldine, the producer of the show, deserves a mention as well. Horrible, horrible person, but in a delicious way.

Fun characters, pretty much all of them, and Ben Elton is having fun poking fun at them. With a sharp pen, British humour, vigorous pacing and a mystery that just gets crazier and crazier. Never a dull moment, not really. House Arrest Three.. Wicked!

[Marina Finlayson · Rating 4 out of 5]

A highly entertaining comment on society's current infatuation with reality TV, this novel features a "Big Brother"-type show with the addition of a real on-screen murder. At least half the housemates have a motive, so the curmudgeonly old detective assigned to the case has a tough job ahead of him. It's a clever whodunnit, and the final scene where the detective reveals the murderer with some prime-time television theatrics of his own is great fun.

[Христо Блажев · Rating 4 out of 5]

Може да си известен, но скоро ще си мъртъв: http://knigolandia.info/book-review/i...

За да се издаде трилър на над 15 години, трябва да е наистина добър – и препоръката за “Известен и мъртъв” на Бен Елтън се оказа абсолютно точна. Рядко се среща книга, която смесва добро криминално разследване с такъв убийствено саркастичен стил, който те кара да се хилиш с глас и да мяташ подозрения във всички посоки. Елтън прави на пух и прах обсесията по реалитата и тяхната лъжлива аура на леко забавление и показва истинската им същност на хищническо воайорство, движено от низки страсти – и ако в реалния живот като цяло те имат някаква граница (нали?), то в романа му едно убийство, извършено пред камерите, довежда до истинска истерия и задълбочаване в ненаситната кръвожадност на човешката природа.

CIELA Books
http://knigolandia.info/book-review/i...

[Scott Spotson · Rating 2 out of 5]

I enjoyed and disliked this book in starts and stops. I liked the premise on the blurb, then I found the beginning of the book slow as none of the characters were likeable, and on top of that, there was a stinking, omnipresent haze of vulgarity and banal triviality that made me want to tear my hair out. Then as the investigation progressed, the characters got pretty damn interesting, as they learned about one another, and we saw how horribly manipulated the reality television got (which I'm sure also happens in powerful television networks airing reality television).

Then, the vulgarity swamped in again, and I just couldn't stand it any more, also the structure of the plot was unique in that they don't even tell you who was murdered, although they all knew who it was since page one. I stopped the book at the halfway mark.

I think the book requires a thorough cleansing before I can return to it, it is just too icky. The sad thing is that the author had plenty of opportunity to write the same story in which people had basic dignity and could communicate without sounding like airheads. Just an attitude adjustment by the story teller could go a long way.

[Pavlina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Една книга, която по идеално саркастичен начин представя човешката деградация в резултат на съвременната "реална" телевизия.

[Pseudonymous d'Elder · Rating 4 out of 5]

_______________________________________________
Dead Famous is Dead On

In the 1960s I read Terry Southern's novel The Magic Christian. In that story, an eccentric billionaire fills a pool with excrement, urine, and blood, throws some money into center of the mix, and tells people that they can have the money if they are simply willing to swim out into this Dantesque morass to retrieve it. There were many takers. At the time, in my naivety, I assumed this was but a mere allegory, a cautionary tale about greed, and not something that would actually happen in reality. But then came "Reality" TV, If you have watched television at all in the last 25 years, you have no doubt seen real people eat deer genitalia, live cockroaches, and road kill just for a "chance" to win a few thousand dollars. Why do they put such things on the air? The TV execs in Ben Elton's Dead Famous would tell you that it is because these degrading acts are "Good Tele."

Dead Famous is both a biting (no, make that "stabbing") satire on reality programming and a well-crafted mystery. As the book begins, the police are already on the set of the latest Big Brother-like reality show. There's been a murder, and despite the fact that all of the suspects were locked into a house in which 30 cameras and 40 microphones are recording every second of the day and night in every inch of the house, no one can figure out who the killer is. The rest of the story is told as a series of flashbacks in which we get to know the vain, backstabbing contestants, some of whom have secrets, and the rapacious producers who exploit, manipulate, and betray the contestants for the sake of improving the show's market share.

Dead Famous is funny and well written. It skewers reality shows, the shows' contestants, and the people who watch them.

WARNING: There is a lot of sex and potty talk in the book, but since much of it is in "British," you can just pretend you don't have the slightest idea what the author is talking about.

[Alex Doenau · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Elton's ear for satire is frequently made of tin. Maybe people in the UK speak as his designated vapid characters do, but they all speak exactly the same as each other, and most of what they say is foreign to Australian ears.

But Dead Famous comes before the excesses of the likes of Chart Throb or Blind Faith, and is therefore only marginally unbelievable. It's not too hard to suspend disbelief, except in frequent jarring moments like one character calling semen "bollock champagne".

Dead Famous was concocted as a reaction to the Big Brother phenomenon that briefly swept the UK and the antipodes. Already anticipating the fish bowl shows' slide into considerably less relevance, Elton spices up the scenario by injecting murder into the house populated by his key suspects.

The structure of Dead Famous allows for propulsive and intriguing reading; for a murder mystery, in which we know from the start that there has been a murder, it is unorthodox not to know the victim or the method of murder until approximately halfway through. The conclusion actually seems somewhat inevitable when it comes, but a significant amount of guessing is entered into.

Elton's characters are somewhat larger than life, taking on the extremes of vulgarity and prudishness. Many of his books are not exactly character studies, but if he honestly thinks that the people of his nation are really this intellectually bankrupt, it's a surprise that no one has risen up against him. None of these people are nice, and even the lead investigator we're supposed to identify with is more of a dinosaur than anything else.

Still, this is a quick and relatively painless exercise, definitely easier than Elton's more preachy work. Plus it was only a dollar, and I got more than a dollar's worth of entertainment out of it.

[Hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ben Elton successfully combines his talents in writing comedy and detective fiction in Dead Famous. As a person who watches very little TV, I hadn't the faintest clue what Big Brother was when I read this book years ago, so I just found myself amused by the idea that so many obnoxious people could have been packed into the same house. How little I knew!

I found the interactions between the contestants extremely interesting, particularly the hatred that they managed to mask for the people they had to live with. Elton also managed to show the manipulations behind the scenes of TV shows very successfully without making it boring or a lecture. In hindsight, what he did best was probably heightening the intrusive, voyeuristic aspect that is part of the real Big Brother, making the viewer feel dirty for watching it, but forces them to tune in the next day.

The murder mystery part was truly Agatha Christie style - a set number of people in a "locked room", all of whom have possible motives for killing the victim. None of the characters are likeable, and that's part of the charm of this book. Having the murder committed right in the view of the cameras and still managing to keep the identity of the murderer so unexpected was masterly. Props to Elton for an entertaining read that also makes you think a bit.

[Jenni Norey · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Got a hundred or so pages in before I gave up. I didn't care about any of the characters, or who the murderer was; or, in fact, who was murdered. Thought it might be a nice light read, something I don't usually go for, but just couldn't get into it.

[Annelies Van Oost · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mijn eerste poging om een boek in het Engels te lezen was een grandioos succes. Ik heb luidop gelachen en heb zelden gulziger gelezen.
Waar is die volgende Ben Elton?

[audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Chloe met Layla at the door of the limo. She looked rock-chick stunning in black leather trousers and a black-leather bra, while Layla looked hippie-chick stunning in a tie-dye silk sarong and cropped silk singlet. The women hugged and kissed as if they were long-lost sisters instead of complete strangers, one of whom was paid to talk to the other one.

Synopsis: How could it be possible to get away with murder in an entirely sealed environment, every inch of which was covered in television cameras and microphones?

A murder mystery set on a UK reality show that makes very little bones about being Big Brother under an assumed name, this book is great for you want a crime novel you can read with your brain in the Off position.

While it does pose (and for me, satisfactorily answer) the question of how to kill a person on the uber-filmed reality tv set, it was more notable for two things: 1) how authentic the reality show setting felt, and 2) how well it hid the identity of the victim for 200 or so pages without being smarmy about it.

Y'all, that's a hard thing to do.

The show House Arrest goes from ratings slump to worldwide media domination when one of the ten young, keen, grinning and ruthless contestants is killed on-camera by someone who successfully conceals their identity. As the police investigate, the show becomes a massive hit and guessing who did it becomes as important as who's voted off next.

The setting is impressively convincing. There's both enough behind-the-scenes detail to convince you of Ben Elton's bonafides, and the contestants themselves are intriguing, with cheerfully dingy pasts and characterization a-go-go. And that's how you can pull off not announcing the victim for 200 pages. Brilliant.

I've seen exactly one episode of Big Brother, and this was some ten years ago, but every small detail rang true, and if it hadn't been Big Brother, it could easily have been The Real World, or The Bachelor or that one weird one about dysfunctional couples stuck on an island together to see who cheats first. I don't know. They all blend together after awhile.

The only downsides to the book were that I hated the investigating officer (but I suspect I was supposed to hate him in some degree -- not that that made him more tolerable) and after the murder is solved (with suitable fanfare) the winner of the show is announced afterwards as a sort of "Oh, and Person X was the winner ...And now back to (Annoying) Cops!"

And I was like, but but but...THE SHOW WAS THE BEST PART.

Sigh.

There's also a romance hinted at that I would've loved to see fall apart for a good ten pages or so, post-denouement, after the two contestants escaped the set.

I ask for so little, people. I really do.

I really didn't think I'd be as into this book as I wound up being, and in fact stayed up half the night once I got stuck into it.

Next thing you know, there'll be a reality show about people reading books killing other people reading books. Just you wait...

[Meg Cooke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dead Famous is a murder mystery in which the crime scene is a Big Brother-esque reality tv show. A kind of dated novel version of the tv series “Unreal”, it follows the day-to-day of the show along with the behind-the-scenes wheeling and dealing of the show’s cutthroat producer. Running parallel to the housemates’ days in the house is the police investigation conducted by a boomer who’s never watched the show.

Author, Ben Elton, paints a scathing critique of reality tv television. The profit-hungry executives’ thirst for ratings and profit leads to sexual assault, murder, and a suicide attempt.

Overall, the story was compelling. Much like big brother itself, the housemates are entertaining. I was intrigued by their conversations and outrageous personalities. The sleazy voyeurism that runs through the book was hard to read but captures the early Big Brother’s preoccupation with nudity and sex. The book skillfully forces you to ultimately empathise with people it renders as nothing more than self-absorbed and shallow.

The main problem with the book is that it hasn’t aged at all well, there’s nothing like youth slang from 20 years ago to make something feel old. Additionally, as another reviewer described it, it’s just quite icky to read a lot of the time. I also thought the attempt to give every housemate a motive went a little far and was too obvious to reiterate just before the murder.

All in all, Dead Famous holds your attention. It ends particularly brilliantly, it’s impossible to put the book down for the last 100 pages. I also liked the ending because it redeems and devillainizes the contestants suggesting perhaps it wasn’t such a crime to pursue fame.

[Tilly · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed it, mostly a nostalgia kick! I felt genuinely transported back to the heady early days of big brother. It was all so spot on, the types of characters you have and the banality of their lives in the house. I can see how this would have been so mind blowing at the time, exposing how it “really worked” in reality tv (big brother).

[Tom · Rating 4 out of 5]

The concept of a murder mystery occurring on a reality TV show makes for a very entertaining read. The characters feel like caricatures at the start (from the vain and vacuous contestants to the curmudgeonly old detective who hates reality TV and doesn't understand the youth of today) which felt a bit grating initially but is quickly redeemed as the characters are fleshed out. Some aspects feel a bit dated but overall it's a fun and gripping read.

[dee breezy-noir · Rating 4 out of 5]

i think i read this at least 10 times on the toilet as a kid

[Maria · Rating 3 out of 5]

big brother reloaded ;))

[Hannah · Rating 4 out of 5]

8/10 - thoroughly enjoyed reminiscing about my days watching big brother. I was confident I knew who the killer was 4 different times and ended up being wrong on all counts 🥲 It’s funny and so British

[Fozz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite this being a very noughties book in some senses, I think it says a lot about the lead-up to our currently constructed culture wars. Also, I’m sometimes worried he’s on a neoliberal pedestal, but manages to charm me enough in the end. Great intro to Ben Elton!

[Aqua · Rating 5 out of 5]

„O casă. Zece concurenți. Treizeci de camere video. Patruzeci de microfoane. Un supraviețuitor. Nouă săptămâni. Fără scuze. Fără scăpare. Arest la domiciliu.”

10 tineri obișnuiți, cu păcate și virtuți, cu defecte și calități, îndeajuns de frumoși, în formă, egocentrici ( unii mai mult, alții mai puțin) și mai ales naivi-chiar și cei inteligenți- având impresia că acest show le va aduce gloria, faima, recunoașterea după care tânjesc cu toții. Bineînțeles, nici premiul cel mare nu-i de lepădat… Cine nu visează să devină bogat și celebru?
Doar că unul dintre ei nu va apuca să viseze prea mult, fiind ucis în direct și la o oră de maximă audiență.

Iar cel care conduce echipa ce investighează cazul nu pare deloc persoana potrivită. Inspectorul-șef Coleridge e trecut de 50 de ani, iubește cărțile, pe Shakespeare, teatrul, deplânge americanizarea limbii engleze, îl deranjează limbajul din ce în ce mai vulgar al tinerilor, lipsa lor de credință, ambiție și idealuri. În plus, n-a văzut nici măcar un singur episod din Arest la domiciliu.

„Coleridge se întrebă dacă era singura persoană din lume care se simțea atât de depășită din punct de vedere cultural. Ori mai existau și alții ca el? Ducând o viață secretă, strecurându-se nevăzuți, temându-se să deschidă gura ca nu cumva să se dea de gol. Oameni care nu mai pricepeau reclamele, ca să nu mai vorbim de programele TV.”

Dar până și fanii declarați, ca sergentul Hooper, ajung să urască toată povestea asta după ce sunt siliți să urmărească sute de ore de material filmat. Fiindcă în casa Peeping Tom-potrivit nume!-zeci de camere fixe și mobile înregistrează continuu, 24/7, chiar dacă doar o mică parte ajunge pe micile ecrane. Iar ceea ce ajunge la telespectatori nu e realitatea, totul e montat, editat, trunchiat, acțiunile și declarațiile concurenților sunt răstălmăcite grosolan, publicul e manipulat să-și îndrepte simpatia ori ura asupra unor persoane care nu-s cu nimic mai bune ori mai rele decât altele din casă.

Producătorii sunt interesați doar de rating așa că încearcă permanent să-i întărâte și să-i provoace pe concurenți; temperatura ridicată care obligă la ținute sumare ori băutura, menită să alunge inhibițiile, fiind doar două dintre metodele de a obține ceea ce vor. În lumina necruțătoare a reflectoarelor, nimeni nu mai poate avea secrete, principii ori demnitate. Cinismul lor te revoltă și te înfioară iar incursiunea asta prin culisele/bucătăria producțiilor de acest gen îți lasă un gust amar în ciuda umorului cu care Ben Elton prezintă situația.

La prima vedere, pare un mister clasic de tipul „camera încuiată” însă autorul abordează subiectul într-un mod original: știm încă de la început că a avut loc o crimă însă numele victimei ne e dezvăluit de-abia pe la jumătatea cărții, după ce ne-am familiarizat cu personajele implicate și am făcut diverse presupuneri în legătură cu identitatea celui ucis, mai ales că unii concurenți sunt atât de antipatici încât simți că respectiva crimă ar fi perfect justificată…

Mai multe: https://jurnal365.ro/recenzia-de-vine...

[Annika Astradsson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a book about people in a reality show. 10 people (airheads) are locked into a house filled with cameras and one of them is murdered there, and still no one sees the identity of the killer. I'll admit it's a good plot. I'll admit I really like everything negative this gives Ben Elton an opportunity to say about reality shows. I'll even admit I like his way of writing. And though I do enjoy ironic books and films where silly, egotistical people are knocked out of their inflated opinion of themselves, I have to confess that this book was almost as boring as the TV-programs it's ridiculing. Try as I might I have not been able to point to a specific thing and say: "this is what did it, this is why it's boring" but there are a few things.

First, The detective in charge of the investigation is hardly familiar with modern television and has to be told things that frankly are part of everyone's frame of reference. Secondly, we are not told until halfway through the book WHO was killed, and that makes it difficult to keep track of who the other airheads are. I wanted to be able to write off at least one of them as the possible killer because who can keep track of ten uninteresting airheads? And finally, there is too much slang in the book, at least to a non-native speaker. I suspect that there is too much slang even for people outside a certain British social group, but maybe it's an acquired taste.

All in all it's not a bad book, but it's not a good book either. It's definitely good enough for one read, especially if you don't like reality shows but do enjoy irony, but it's not one I would recommend to spend a day with.

[Maria Elmvang · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was completely fascinated by this book from the very first page. A murder committed in a "Big Brother"-type environment would have seemed impossible to achieve - and certainly very easy to solve - so how could it make for an interesting book? Yet Ben Elton manages to pull it off. I had great difficulties putting it down, and was completely taken aback by the ending... which, granted, wasn't all that likely, even if it was plausible.

The atmosphere of "Big Brother" was spot on (at least as seen in the Danish version), which is actually the sole reason for the one star taken off - I always felt kinda dirty or voyeuristic watching that show, and Ben Elton managed to achieve the exact same result from me reading... to which I guess I should say "Well done!"

Perfect for a quick summer read.... but now I feel like rereading Guilt by Association by Gilbert Morris as "Dead Famous" reminded me of it. That's not a bad thing though ;)

[Elliot Taylor · Rating 2 out of 5]

Testament to why you shouldn't write a book about a subject you hate and have no real interest in. An absolute waste of a great premise.