Getting Serious About Humor: A Truly Funny Novel

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While reading humor books, I haven't come across a lot of fiction I found truly funny. Until I read A Most Agreeable Murder by Julia Seales. The book's publisher calls it a "cozy mystery," but I think it's a parody. And not a parody of cozy mysteries, though I don't read a lot of those so I can't be sure. I think it's more a parody of the couple-historical-detective series I'm fond of and Pride and Prejudice. There's also a nod to the classic/horror mash-ups that were popular fifteen or twenty years ago. (Side note: My husband, son, and daughter-in-law all agreed to see Pride and Prejudice and Zombies with me, even though none of them had read Pride and Prejudice. We all liked the movie.) 

A Most Agreeable Murder is such a good parody, I wonder if people unfamiliar with what is being parodied will get it. Must be they do, or enough do, anyway, because a sequel is coming in June.

A Note About the Pride and Prejudice References in A Most Agreeable Murder

Many years ago, I read an essay in which the author noted that while Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice is portrayed as shallow and foolish and only interested in finding husbands for her daughters, she is also entirely correct. Without husbands, her daughters will be in dire straits when their father dies. They will have no income, they won't even have a home. While Mrs. Bennet is going all over the neighborhood frantically trying to find men to take care of her daughters, because in the world they live in they need men, her husband is portrayed as this intelligent, benign soul, disappointed by his choice of wife and burdened with her. Yet he is doing nothing, absolutely nothing, to save his children, leaving all the work to their mother.

Yeah, well the Steele family in A Most Agreeable Murder are clearly the Bennets from Pride and Prejudice, and Mr. Bennet/Steele here gets the treatment he deserves. While Mrs. Bennet/Steele gets a little respect.

A Note About the Couple-Mystery-Detective Series References in A Most Agreeable Murder

The couple-historical-detective series I'm familiar with have all involved heterosexual couples, so I don't know how this would play out with same sex couples. But with the heterosexual couples, the woman is usually (but not always) the main character. The male may or may not have some kind of connection, amateur or professional, to solving crime. The two of them meet in the stereotypical hate-to- love/Pride and Prejudice manner, end up working together, and, at some point in the series, become romantically involved.

The male characters fall into a particular predictable pattern. While manly and intelligent and superior in some way, either through achievement or family status, they are always damaged. They had a bad war experience. (As if there are good ones.) They have daddy issues. They had a bad war experience and have daddy issues. They have migraines. They have migraines and daddy issues. They've had bad experiences with women. They've had bad experiences with women, and they have daddy issues.

They are damaged while the female character is not. Other than being female, of course.

I'm recovering from a couple of mild illnesses, so I'm not going to try to unravel what's going on with that situation. But, certainly, something is.

What I'm getting to here is that Inspector Drake in A Most Agreeable Murder plays to the damage business in a very obvious manner, if you're aware of the damage trope/cliche. And another less obvious manner, which I won't mention because I don't want to give it away.

Some Other Random Thoughts

The unsavory cousin who is set to inherit the Steele daughters' house out from under them and is a variation on the same character in Pride and Prejudice was terrific, though I might have found him over-the-top, if I didn't know the parody business going on with him. 

The multiple murderer possibilities were well done. 

The fart joke was excellent, in large part because it was so incongruous.

This is a funny book that also has quite a decent mystery. I definitely look forward to the next book in what may end up being a series.