Finished Sa 1/31/26
This is one of my ancient trade paperbacks that I had never read. The novel is written with a kind of a gay Agatha Christie plotline. The setup is that a young man is thrown out of a third story window and is impaled on a fence. His father was stabbed to death and left in the room where the boy had fallen. It was believed that the son killed his dad and then jumped out of the window. This is not what happened.
The novel is set in the Bloor Street area of Toronto, Canada. This is a 'hip' area of the city with trendy shopping and old money homes.
This was a light read and somewhat enjoyable, but I still do not like the Agatha Christie setup. The author introduces many possible suspects and the reader is supposed to guess the killer.
From Publishers Weekly:
"Dunford's immensely satisfying sequel to last year's Soon to Be a Major Motion Picture picks up several years later with the same appealing characters. Soon found fledgling Toronto screenwriter Mitchell Draper and his friends Ingrid and Ramir in a sendup of crime dramas and Mafia Princess potboilers. This latest venture is a smart and self-aware parody of gothic murder mysteries, complete with a bevy of suspects, hidden staircases in a spooky mansion ("the kind of house that had inspired the game of Clue"), ancient secrets and even a giant party at the end that brings all the suspects back to the scene of the crime. Alert readers will catch references to Rosemary's Baby, The Haunting of Hill House and Scooby Doo. The biggest surprise is the book's gradual slide from hilarious homage to an honest-to-goodness locked-door mystery. Few will guess the outcome of the clever twists that tantalize until the final pages. Mitchell's idea that a 20-year-old father-son murder-suicide would make a blockbuster movie script finds him investigating the long-closed case and discovering new facts that may endanger him and his cohorts. Meanwhile, Ingrid is attempting reconciliation with her ex-husband, and Ramir has joined a charismatic cult whose leader was intimately involved in the tragedy. New characters are especially well drawn, notably dying designer Cortland McPhee, aging sexpot Gabriella Hartman ("one of Entertainment Weekly's 101 Stars Who Just Won't Give Up") and her Thelma Ritter–like psychic adviser Jane Choy. While some readers will be eager to see what genre Dunford turns his comedic talents to next, others will hope he settles into mystery for good."
