Brett, Simon. A Reconstructed Corpse. Toronto: World Wide Books, 1996.
Just to hold this book in my hands was fun. It’s one of those pocket-sized paperbacks with a loaded cover. Depicted is a foggy night. A not so put-together man walks by an overturned metal garbage can. A large brown paper package tied with white cords and blood dripping from it has presumably spilled from the canister. Among the debris is broken egg shells, a worn shoe that has seen better days and an empty bottle. As if the title can’t tell you, you know by the illustration it’s a murder mystery.
Simon Brett’s A Reconstructed Corpse is a fun mystery. Charles Paris, a down and out actor, has been hired to play the role of a missing man on a true crime series called “Public Enemies.” Think re-enactment shows like “Unsolved Mysteries” or more recently, “America’s Most Wanted.” Charles’s role goes from that of a missing man to a presumed murdered man when body parts start showing up each week…right before airing. It’s a little too mysterious for Charles and soon he finds himself not only playing the dead man, but amateur detective on the side.
Phrases that caught my attention: “…fastidiously groomed and languid to the point of torpor” (p 9). “he put everything grittily – he was constitutionally incapable of speaking without grit” (p 29). He shoehorned a smile on to his face” (p 31).
I think my only complaint would be the silliness over identifying the body parts. The missing man’s wife was asked to look at the arms through plastic and she made an affirmative identification based on a fake Rolex watch. Whatever happened to DNA evidence?
BookLust Twist: From More Book Lust in the chapter, “All the World’s a Stage” (p 8).
~*LunaSea*~ 