Tongue in cheek, enjoyable romp - Rated 
Having read "The Act of Roger Mugatroyd", the first in this proposed trilogy, I knew roughly what the style of the book would be: an entertaining take-off of the Agatha Christie style of detective fiction, but none the worse for that. The author doesn't satirize Christie: it's more a homage with knobs on. A tweedy lady of mature years (Evadne Mount) runs rings around the professional police force in solving crimes. The solution in this book is ingenious. It's a light-hearted, enjoyable book, not a bit like the gritty reality of real detective work as depicted by the likes of Peter Robinson or Ian Rankin.
Enjoyable old-fashioned mystery novel with lots to offer Alfred Hitchcock film buffs - Rated
I really liked the first book so I was keen to read the follow up. This time, instead of Cluedo, it's inspired by Alfred Hitchcock films - in everything from the style of the book to a character based completely on Hitchcock (there is also a character based on the French director Francois Truffaut, who is writing an interview book awfully similar to the one Truffaut wrote about Hitchcock).
It's slightly post-modern as it references the mystery novel and, to a lesser extent, Hitchcock thriller genre conventions; but there's nothing too arty about it. Interestingly the two books both have titles that riff slightly on Agatha Christie book titles.
It's full of cliches but that's the point. The author seems to have proper literary credentials, and has crafted this book for his own pleasure. See also Going To The Dogs by Dan Kavanaugh (real name Julian Barnes) for a similar lightweight mystery by an acclaimed literary author.
It's as good as the first book. If it appeals to you then I would recommend it.
*MINOR SPOILER*
The murder doesn't take place until halfway into the book so it does play with some conventions of the genre. Those first 100 or so pages are enjoyable enough, and anyway two deaths have taken place under mysterious circumstances so there's is already a mystery in place from the start.
Evadne Mount rides again - and this time it's personal!! - Rated 
This is the second book in what will be the 'Evadne Mount' trilogy. I had read and enjoyed the first book, 'The Act of Roger Mugatroyd', but you don't necessarily have to read it to appreciate this book.
Evadne Mount is a fabulous character; a mystery / crime writer, who wears a tricorn hat, has a booming voice and an impressively direct manner. She runs into Chief-Inspector Trubshawe and the unlikely pair team up once again.
This time the focus of their investigations is the murder of Cora Rutherford, an actress who is slightly past her prime, who is also a friend of Evadnes's. The murder follows the suspicious death of the director, and takes place on a crowded film set, so it will need all of the couple's investigative powers to find out who's responsible.
This was a great book, as was its predecessor; full of humour, word play fun and great characters. Although this is a pastiche, it is also a homage to the great golden-age mysteries.
Cosy winter reading, tuck yourself up and enjoy!
Much Improved - Rated
Adair came a cropper with the first of his "Evadne Mount Trilogy," as Amazon is billing it, though his foreword will only admit to a sequel. THE ACT OF ROGER MURGATROYD was a terrible book and his detective novelist sleuth a postmodern joke gone sadly wrong. The whole thing was the biggest disappointment of 2006. Happily Adair listened to my strictures and pulled himself together this time around. The result is a great relief and amazingly enough, an actual return to Golden Age Detection values, with, of course, that patented Adair sparkle and paronomasia.
Evadne Mount returns, but older now, and less of a Francoise Sagan rebel; now she more closely resembles a Gladys Mitchell, worn down with the wrinkles and wry cynicism of Thelma Ritter. With her onetime girlfriend, the actress Cora Witherspoon, Evadne manages to stumble across an old acquaintance, Inspector Eustace Trubshawe, whom she had once assisted in the ridiculous Murgatroyd case. England's mood is different now, more sober, more tired, as the various political parties carve up the alectorate to unseat the Conservatives and usher in a new mood of social change. Adair cleverly sets his novel in the film world, and introduces us to a marvelous pastiche of Alfred Hitchcock called Farjeon, whose many thriller movies have made him a household name, and beloved by French film "theorists." Although fat and ungainly, "Farje" as he is known manages to squeeze himself in a cameo part in all of his own films. In fact, he appears in an actual cameo brooch in a movie set entirely in an elevator.
Adair's sendups of Hitchcock's films and donnees are ever so much more sparkling than the lame stabs at Agatha Christie that ruined ROGER MURGATROYD for me. When Farje is killed in a fire, his protege attempts to complete an unfinished film for him, and there's one splendid setpiece in which the director instructs his actors to perform some inventive pantomime business with a living child at a lavish party. The novel springs to life in this sequence and never lets up after that, even though suspects are rather too forthcoming, confessing their darkest secrets after the merest prodding by Trubshawe, Mount and company.
I was shocked and delighted by the ending of the story and I'm sorry Michael Dibdin didn't live to see this one coming at him, like truth, at 24 frames a second.
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