Review: Dead Famous

Title: Dead Famous
Author: Ben Elton
Publication Date: Sep. 1, 2005
Genre: Mystery
Recommended If You Like: reality shows, mysteries that are very unique, locked room mysteries, the killer is one of us mysteries

The Book:

Contestants are locked in a house for a Big-Brother style British reality show called House Arrest. But then one of them is murdered, and even though the murder itself was caught on camera, the police find themselves in the middle of a complicated, twisted case they may not be able to solve.

What I Liked:

I watch a lot of reality TV (though not Big Brother), so I loved a mystery that was centered around a reality show. Elton does a brilliant job of playing around with the reality show contestant stereotypes and the tropes surrounding putting on and editing reality television.

I especially loved this mystery because not only is it set in a reality show, but because of the type of reality show, it becomes a locked room/the killer is one of us mystery, my favorite.

Elton uses flashbacks, the footage the country saw, and the unaired footage the production company kept back brilliantly to build suspense.

Anything I Didn't Like?

This was a re read for me, and it didn't quite hold up as strongly the second time through. I can't really put my finger on why, because I definitely enjoyed the re read a lot,

So...?

I would definitely recommend this book. It is a fun, clever, gripping read-I flew through the re read of it in a little over a day.