Double Negative (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries)
by David Carkeet
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Book Summary Information
Author: David CarkeetEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2005-06
ISBN: 193339708X
Number of pages: 246
Publisher: Felony & Mayhem Press
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9781933397085
- Condition: New
- Notes: 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Double Negative (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries)
Book Review: Goddamn, this is a wonderful book.
Summary: 5 Stars
"Hoosier, n., etymology obscure and boring: a dumb white man with a fat white wife who eats greens, attaches his muffler to his car with a coat hanger, and leaves refrigerators in his yard for children to suffocate in."
You know how reviewers rave about books that they "can't put down" once they pick them up? I always thought this was the absolute top praise you could heap on a tome. But then I read Double Negative by David Carkeet and realized that books can do one better: they can make you keep putting them down to marvel at the cleverness of a phrase, or to gasp for air amid fits of laughter. "Easily clutched" becomes penultimate praise by comparison.
Double Negative was nominated for an Edgar for best mystery in 1980, and it is the first in a trilogy by David Carkeet featuring the title character, Jeremy Cook, a famous linguist (as far as a linguist can be, I suppose) and all-around swell guy.
Jeremy works in a daycare center that doubles as a linguistics research facility. In exchange for discount toddler oversight, the staff is allowed to take copious notes about every utterance their tykes make as they learn to form words and sentences. A large part of the book's charm is that the characters all appreciate sentence structure, leading to some humor that only book geeks could appreciate. It is a wonderful premise that allows Carkeet to show off his verbiage with a built-in excuse for excess.
The story he gets to tell with these skills reminded me a bit of the CLUE movie to which our site pays homage. When one of the linguists that works along with Jeremy is killed, the entire staff turns their eyes towards the mystery and each other. Everyone knows that one of them committed the murder, which leads to the hilarious snooping, traps, questions, suspicions, and misplaced trust that made the movie adaptation such a classic.
Just as in the CLUE movie, the characters are vivid and unique. The book's detective is an intelligent and quirky fellow whose interplay with Jeremy is so good that many bouts of dialog begged to be enjoyed with multiple readings. And Jeremy is one of those rare book protagonists that you immediately fall in love with after only a few pages. By the end of the book he is a real person, completely fleshed out, and just as wonderful for his faults as for his charms.
The plot is interesting enough, but it is Carkeet's ability to dizzy the reader with a turn of phrase that makes this an enticing read. Again and again I would damn the author for using up an analogy that I sure would have enjoyed coming up with on my own. My head is now filled with superior phrasings that make simple tasks, such as emailing my wife from the road, a depressing exercise in linguistic futility. I just want to send her excerpts from the book instead of the dull crap that spills out of my less-intelligent noggin.
Understand ahead of time that this is not a mystery you are meant to solve along with the protagonist. It is a humerus suspense story with some fascinating philosophy and linguistic theory thrown into the mix. If Douglas Adams could have turned it down a notch and written a good mystery, Double Negative would have been the result. Word-lovers, people whose sense of humor often soars over the heads of their peers, and anyone with an IQ over 120 will love, love, love this book. It is the best mystery I have read since Aunt Dimity Slays the Dragon and funniest book I have snorted through since Them by Jon Ronson.
Summary of Double Negative (Felony & Mayhem Mysteries)
Dedicated to the study of toddlers and their development of verbal skills, the Wabash Institute should be staffed by kinder, gentler scholars, but instead is home to a nest of sublimely cranky academics. When one of them is bludgeoned to death, Jeremy Cook ? the Institute?s premier scholar and the book?s socially clueless hero ? becomes the prime suspect. To clear his name, Cook resolves to solve the case, even if it means taking time off from his hobby of teaching imaginary words to the Institute?s tiny ?subjects.? While gleefully skewering academia, Carkeet ? himself a professor of linguistics ? also provides a spectacularly ingenious puzzle. ?Mystery stories that have a really original solution to the crime are very rare,? said the New York Times Book Review, ?but Dr. Carkeet has found one.?Literature & Fiction Books
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