Cast Adrift by
Peter Guttridge
hbk out January 05
Published by Allison Busby
at £18.99
Nick Madrid is back, and this time he encounters mayhem in the Caribbean while
working as a stuntman in an improbable low-budget movie musical about pirates.
Among British writers of comic crime, Guttridge occupies a zany niche of his own -
perhaps the closest comparison is the American Carl Hiassen, who gets a name-check
towards the end of the book. Nick is persuaded to take on the job by his formidable
chum Bridget Frost ('my constant goad') and before long he is experiencing a 'Titanic
moment' as the assistant director instructs him to lean over the rim of the (balsawood)
crow's nest and put his arms back like wings. Guttridge has a merry time satirising the
cheap film fraternity – amongst other characters, I enjoyed the hapless lyricist Hal
Jones (very much not in the same class as the great Hal David) and the weird survivor
of a game show gone terribly wrong, who calls himself Ben Gunn. Nick's love life, it
has to be reported, does not become much more satisfactory during the course of the
novel, but it offers readers, as well as Bridget, quite a bit of amusement. In a romp
such as this, the plot does not much matter. Those seeking an exquisitely crafted
whodunit should look elsewhere. Readers who enjoy their fiction spiced with lashings
of jokes will find plenty of laughs in this one.
(
Martin Edwards
- author of the highly acclaimed Harry Devlin Mysteries)
Cast Adrift by
Peter Guttridge
