No Laughing Matter See Review by
Michael Jecks
Comedy is a serious business.
Some people just die laughing...
In Peter Guttridge's hip and humorous debut novel Tom Sharpe meets Raymond Chandler as comic and crime fiction is combined to exhilarating effect.
Journalist Nick Madrid is helplessly locked in an advanced yoga position when a naked woman plummets past his window to her death. She is one of 250 comics attending Juste Pour Rire, the biggest comedy festival in the world. Nick turns gumshoe in Montreal, the mean streets of the Edinburgh festival and Hollywood to find her killer. He is helped by Bridget Frost, the Bitch of the Broadsheets, whose tacky exterior conceals, well, a tacky interior.
Nick tangles with cynical agents, movie stars, comics, New Age hustlers, a man who hammers nails into his head for a living, rich couples addicted to Twelve Step Recovery programmes and a toad with a taste for cigarillos before discovering the truth among the dark secrets of Hollywood's biggest stars. ‘Managed the rare double of making me laugh out loud and wince in sympathy at both the violence and the humiliation meted out to the narrator… enormous fun.’ Val McDermid
‘A fast moving, laugh-a-line frolic... we gasp with amazement, excitement and amusement... Don't believe the title. This book will make you laugh.’ Reginald Hill
‘An original and highly readable debut for Nick Madrid. But a word of warning: never let this man house-sit if you value your pets.’ Lynne Truss
'Sparkling debut… Madrid is a highly engaging hero, who is very funny because his dry British reserve so ill equips him for the job in hand. Romping good stuff' Daily Mail
‘Jokes are delivered with the speed and accuracy of a Gatling gun… loosen the corsets and go along for the ride.’ Daily Telegraph
‘A mock and baroque whodunit… an entertainingly self-conscious romp.’ GQ
'Witty, spooky and sometimes even serious… Peter Guttridge is a fresh, stimulating new talent to watch out for' Peter James
'Brilliant farce' Good Housekeeping
‘the funniest crime novel of the year’ Publishing News
No Laughing Matter
See Review by
Michael Jecks
No Laughing Matter