Publish and Be Murdered
She's filleted the civil service, clobbered the Cambridge colleges, satirized gentlemen's clubs, burlesqued the bishops - now Ruth Dudley Edwards mocks the media.
Living with Rachel and contemplating marriage, Amiss feels settled at last. He even has a proper job, managing The Wrangler a right-wing, 200-year-old English magazine of economics, politics and letters - and stemming the monumental losses incurred through the extravagance and inefficiency of its editor, William Lambie Crump.
Yet Amiss is not entirely happy with his job, for the atmosphere at the paper is poisoned by rampant egocentricity and savage ideological battles. Things are so bad that not even the appointment of Baroness Troutbeck as a columnist seems likely to bring much cheer.
When Henry Potbury, the drunken deputy editor, is found drowned in a bowl of punch, suspicions of foul play are brushed aside by the police. But after another death, Amiss's friend Chief Superintendent Jim Milton takes charge of the investigation, spurred on by relentless chivvying from the baroness. Is the murderer a Conservative, enraged by the paper's switch to New Labour? An ambitious journalist, desperate to break the promotion log jam? Or a wife enraged by her husband's obsession with a tarry correspondent? There is no shortage of motives and, in typical Dudley Edwards style, no shortage of laughs in this riotous farce.
'A complete delight to read ... She is unique.' Irish Independent
'This blithe series puts itself on the side of the angels by merrily, and staunchly, subverting every tenet of political correctness.' PATRICIA CRAIG, Independent
Praise For Matricide at St Martha’s
‘Dudley Edwards has written a shocking send-up of the groves of Academe. I fear it will make you laugh out loud on public transport’ Jill Neville, Evening Standard
‘the clever plot takes second place to the ebullience of the writing and spot-on inventiveness of the satire’ Marcel Berlins, The Times
‘Mayhem, the recurring sight of masks and jaws dropping, and a marvellously rueful grand finale’ John Coleman, Sunday Times

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Murder in a Cathedral
See Review by John Boyles
See Review by Andrew Taylor
See Review by Val McDermid
For many years Westonbury Cathedral has been dominated by a clique of High-Church gays, so when Norm Cooper, an austere, intolerant, happy-clappy evangelist, is appointed dean, there is shock, outrage and fear.
David Elworthy, the gentle and politically innocent new bishop, is distraught at the prospect of warfare between the factions; contentious issues include the camp lady chapel and the gay memorial under construction in the deanery garden. Desperate for help, Elworthy cries on the shoulder of his old friend, the redoubtable Baroness Troutbeck, who forces her unofficial troubleshooter, Robert Amiss, to move into the bishop's palace.
Amiss Troutbeck and the cat Plutarch address themselves in their various ways to the bishop’s problems, which very soon include a clerical corpse in the cathedral: Is it suicide? Or is it murder? And who is likely to be next?
The latest in Ruth Dudley Edwards's wickedly funny series taking an irreverent look at the British Establishment.
Cover illustration: Mark Entwistle
'No one is writing wittier mystery fiction in Britain today than Ruth Dudley Edwards' Val McDermid Manchester Evening News
‘A wise and witty read’ Michael Painter, Irish Times
‘Lovely stuff’ Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
'This blithe series puts itself on the side of the angels by merrily, and staunchly, subverting every tenet of political correctness' Patricia Craig Independent

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Ten Lords A-Leaping
Ida ‘Jack’ Troutbeck, outrageous Mistress of St Martha’s College, has been elevated to the peerage, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the House of Lords will never be the same again. Disinclined to watch her language or moderate her manners, she appals conventional peers, but plots vigorously with others to scupper an anti-hunting bill of which she violently disapproves.
Assisted by her old friend Robert Amiss, the baroness feels confident of winning the battle. But she hadn’t reckoned with the campaign of intimidation mounted by the animal activists and the attempt on the life of one of her allies, shortly followed by scenes of horrifying carnage amongst the peers...
'Edwards puts the knife into the House of Lords with majestic aplomb’ Mike Ripley, Daily Telegraph
‘Splendid fun and a complete delight to read ... She is unique’ John Welcome, Irish Independent
‘Sharply Entertaining ... Highly enjoyable satire’ Sue Wilson, Scotsman

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About The Author
Ruth Dudley Edwards was born and brought up in Dublin. Since she graduated she has lived in England, where she has been a teacher, a Cambridge postgraduate student, a marketing executive, a civil servant and finally, a freelance writer and journalist.
An historian and prize-winning biographer, her most recent non-fiction includes the authorised history of The Economist and a portrait of the British Foreign Office, written with its co-operation.
She feels intellectually English and temperamentally Irish. Publish and be Murdered is her eighth crime novel. The sixth, Ten Lords A-Leaping, was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association's Last Laugh Award for Funniest Crime Novel of the Year.

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Bibliography

Publish and Be Murdered (HarperCollins) (1998) 18 May 98

Murder in a Cathedral (1996) Pbk 16 Feb 98

Ten Lords A-Leaping (HarperCollins) (1995)

Corridors of Death

The St Valentine's Day Murders

Matricide At St. Martha's

The School of English Murder

Clubbed to Death

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