It is a precious thing to make people laugh; but to write humorous crime fiction must be fiendishly difficult. I really enjoyed this book - the ease with which the author uses language is marked and his images and phrases frequently led me to chuckle; for example, ‘there is an important difference between fiction and real life. Fiction has to be believable.’ Or in reference to the police, ‘As the senior officer present he usually got the best lines. Except that, for the next few minutes, I knew that all the best lines were going to be mine.’ And, his comment on the main character’s father who was a failed academic that ‘though he was able to devote less time to it, his failure in the field of politics was every bit as complete.’Ethelred Tressidor, the hero or anti-hero is a writer - under different names he writes historicals, romance & crime. Tyler skewers the peculiarities of the 3 genres very effectively. As a historical novelist Ethelred deals only with the reign of Richard II who is described as a man out of his time who would have been fine as a Tudor or a Stuart but ’he couldn’t hack it as a Plantagenet!’ As a romantic novelist he eschews overt sex as his readers prefer. His redoubtable policeman has appeared in numerous adventures but aged hardly at all.
Crime seems to be to the fore for Ethelred as the disappearance of his ex-wife, Geraldine, leads to his acquaintance with crime in real life. Meetings with various characters from Geraldine’s life confuse Ethelred and his forthright literary agent, Elise Thirkettle, as they investigate what can have happened. The whole story does makes perfect sense when the final explanations are made. The herrings of the title are of the red variety - as is only right in a detective story!
Tyler spoofs the genre unmercifully; Elsie’s comments on his use of a different type for a different character’s input are very funny and accurate. The fact that it is her words that are being presented only makes her attitude the funnier.
---------------------------
Jennifer S. Palmer
L. C. Tyler has written 2 more humorous crime novels - A Very Persistent Illusion and Ten Little Herrings. The second book does deal with some of the characters of The Herring Seller’s Apprentice.