The Riverside Villas Murder (Penguin Modern Classics)

In the late Sixties and Seventies the great British comic novelist Kingsley Amis began to experiment with genre, seeing what he could do by bringing his own spin to the novel of the supernatural (and so produced THE GREEN MAN) and the dystopian novel (THE ALTERATION). THE RIVERSIDE VILLAS MURDER was his stab at the classic early twentieth-century detective novel; the central hero detective figures of it, the bachelor aesthete Colonel Menton and the teenage Peter Furneaux, might well have gone on to figure in a whole series of murder mysteries set in the 1930s (though somehow it seems better they did not). Though the actual mystery involving a dying cad stumbling in a rainstorm into a suburban living room is quite clever in terms of how it is worked out ultimately (it will remind you very much of murder mysteries of its era), Amis's true interests are in observing the profoundly middle-class milieu and in Peter's psychosexual development as a young man. We learn that Peter, as a fourteen year-old boy, not only has strong desires for young women (which are miraculously realized during the course of the novel) but that he has had quite a bit of sexual practice with the other boys in his class at school; this, and the Colonel's homosexuality, are both treated quite factually in the novel as something the characters not only have in their characters but that they must speak around in odd and uncomfortable ways. Oddly, though, Amis himself seems at times a bit squeamish with these simple sexual facts, and for all his attempts at frankness himself often speaks in euphemisms and in foreign terms; though he was undoubtedly being quite straightforward for the time in which the novel was written, the effect today is a bit peculiar--as if he's trying to be bold and honest but can't quite bring himself all the way. Amis for once eschews his usual boorish alcoholic bounder characters, and the central (male) figures that emerge in the novel are strikingly original: the jazz-loving and upright Colonel, the thoughtful and resourceful Peter, and Peter's vain and bluff middle-class father (whose portrait is the best thing in the book). Alas, as is usual for Amis, his female characters do not fare so well, and are mostly enigmas seen through a his usual lens of distrust and sexual longing.

Kingsley Amis was a literary writer, but he never showed disdain for genre writing. In 1958, he gave an endowed lecture series at Princeton and chose to talk about science fiction (later published as New Maps of Hell). He pseudonymously authored a James Bond novel (Colonel Sun). And his middle period (roughly the late 1960s to the late 1970s is full of genre works, written in his inimitable style and full of his characteristic concerns: The Anti-Death League (science fiction); The Green Man (horror); The Alteration (alternative history); or this book, an English murder mystery.While I believe the first three of these books to rank among Amis’s more interesting novels, and might recommend them to those unacquainted with his work, I cannot say the same for The Riverside Villa Murders. Those who know something of Amis’s life will recognize the autobiographical outlines here – the precocious only child of lower middle class parents who is enamored of pre-bebop jazz – and the implications should be interesting to any Amis devotee, particularly with respect to his relationship to his father, a central character here.Unfortunately, this thread is also likely to reduce the book’s appeal to anyone not interested in Kingsley Amis (which, to be fair, is probably most people). Elements that provide interest as a gloss on Kingsley Amis likely seem just odd or irrelevant as characterization of Peter Furneaux (the protagonist) or the world he inhabits. An earlier review suggest that Peter’s intrepid pursuit of a girl is implausible for a boy of his age and experience; I agree, to the extent Peter is supposed to be a typical adolescent, but as a sketch of the young Kingsley Amis it seems all too plausible. (Peter even makes “faces” to amuse the girl, a skill for which Amis as known and which even features in Lucky Jim).More disappointingly, this book simply does not show Amis’s writing at its finest. One may forgive him for not plotting the most baffling puzzle – though I think he does a serviceable job of designing an engaging murder and strewing clues for the reader – but the books’ dialogue, characterization, and even syntax all gave me pause one point or another. Perhaps most culpably for a Kingsley Amis novel, I did not laugh once.As such, I would discourage reading The Riverside Villa Murders either as an entrée to Amis or as a pure mystery. The novel may give some pleasure to those who have enjoyed other Amis novels beyond Lucky Jim, but it seems likely to be of most interest to someone who could see themselves, for example, reading an Amis biography or otherwise probing beyond a passing familiarity with his work.

I love this book and have a well worn paperback copy. I wanted it on my Kindle so I could read it on holiday this past week, having downloaded it in August.I'm disappointed with the formatting. It's so bad that it's quite distracting when I try to read this.Speech is wrongly set out; some of the paragraphs are wrongly set out. The right hand side of the text is not justified so is ragged down the right hand side on every page.I'd return this for a refund but unfortunately I'm out of time.

Amusing to think that young Peter would now be a snowflake splitter and Mrs. Trevelyan on the sex offenders' register and vilified in the pages of the odious 'Daily Mail'.This is a novel of enormous skill, easily understood by anyone with half a brain. It's also tremendously entertaining, especially for those who remain addicts of the Golden Age of British detective fiction, when the murderer was pretty sure to see the black cap if not actually feel the rope - a far cry from wishy-washy 'Morse' etc. where a serial killer gets a chance to complete a degree in sociology, write self-important letters to the Home Office and enjoy a foot massage into the bargain.

Based no doubt on the author's experiences

Tripe.