This is a very good second novel from Mark Watson. You’d expect a book from a comedian to be
full of quick one-liners and witty ripostes, but there is little of that
here. Instead, Mark Watson has
concentrated on telling a very good story.
It helps that he is very good at characterisation – he really gets in
the head of Andreas Honig, the young German student who unwittingly finds that
he can make a lot of money from impersonating Hitler. Mark Watson fleshes out Andreas’ extraordinary life very well –
he must have done quite a bit of research to create such a convincing
character. Andreas also has the
temerity to fall in love with Britain’s fifth tallest woman, and it’s through
Rose Ravenhill that he gets his unusual job.
However, following a visit to his brother Ralf in Germany, Andreas
begins to have doubts about his chosen profession… Alexandra, the prison visitor to whom Andreas has poured out his
heart, is also very convincing. It very
much helps the plot that Andreas has decided to write his memoirs in German, as
his extraordinary story is only revealed in instalments, translated by
Alexandra’s otherwise obnoxious housemate Gareth. I had more or less predicted what the ending was going to be, but
there is no harm in the author pleasing the reader in this way, and Mark Watson
has very skilfully and subtly engineered this ending, so that the reader also
does not feel cheated. A Light-Hearted
Look at Murder is a very entertaining read.
You can read a resume of the book on our Amazon store below. To find out more about the author, please visit our Mark Watson page.
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