It's been a while since I've read a book (not for school), especially a fluffy bit of mystery. So by the time I got to page 38 of Morty Guggenmoose's Speechless (everyone in the book has weird names, and most of the main characters have names that end in "ee" - Morty, Mashie, Alvy, Sunny Lee, and the Anchovy) and exclaimed "blarhfhd!" or something to that effect, signalling that I had figured out the mystery, it was a bit of a shock. Not that guessing what was going to happen was a shock, I just hadn't had the satisfaction for such a long time that I'd forgotten about it. (This is how I pretend to be a detective - figuring out the plots of random books and movies)
So! What I shall say about this book: read if you are a part of the sordid world of academia (preferably Humanities or the Arts - the thoroughly useless stuff) and like to have a laugh at the lifestyle. The author is from York, but the descriptions of LOTMU (the university in the book) could easily have been my university or any other (the horrid atmosphere and locations exactly, minus the study carrels that are like tiny locked cells?!) If you don't know what I mean, or are getting some sort of useful degree, the the book probably won't be very funny/probably will be very confusing.
If you have ever written a paper based on a genius brainwave at 2:00am and then realized that the last page of your source material negates your entire argument, but you were reading as you went and didn't get to the last page until 4:00am...so you went back and rewrote the thesis to say that your argument is only based on the first half...Basically, this book shows that academics are capable of anything, especially murder, theft, framing people, etc.
And with that cheery thought! Adieu!
SPOILER ALERT
One last thing: I really wanted Horace's use of ablatives to be solved with verve and genius at the end, but, as in life, one's papers are never ready in time for the conference and you end up bullshitting the whole thing, thankfully forgetting what you even said, and drowning your sorrows at the pub. Except in real life your rival doesn't turn out to be conveniently gay, allowing you to hook up with the hot/super intelligent Asian chick of your dreams.
