Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Read Adair

I am sorry to admit that I’ve never read the work of Scottish-born novelist, poet, and critic Gilbert Adair, but when I read that he had passed away on December 9, I at least recognized his name. Yet I knew it principally because of three Agatha Christie spoofs he penned in his later years, all featuring the “formidable” whodunit author Evadne Mount: The Act of Roger Murgatroyd (2006), A Mysterious Affair of Style (2007), and And Then There Was No One (2009).

Prior to working on those, he also produced books such as The Holy Innocents (1988) and The Key of the Tower (1997), and was a film critic for Time Out London magazine. More complete and warm remembrances can be found in The Guardian, The Daily Telegraph, The Observer, and Time Out. Adair died at age 66 from a brain hemorrhage, just over a year after he lost his sight to a stroke.

(Hat tip to The Gumshoe Site.)

READ MORE:R.I.P., Gilbert Adair,” by Martin Edwards (‘Do You Write Under Your Own Name?’).

1 comment:

Patrick said...

I'm afraid that when I read Adair's book THE ACT OF ROGER MURGATROYD, I thoroughly despised it and gave it a thorough trashing on my blog. I wouldn't recommend the book to anyone, and certainly won't read any Evadne Mount novel ever again.

But that being said, Adair was a prolific man to say the least. In particular, I'm impressed by his achievement for translating LA DISPARITION (A VOID) from the original French and keeping the original book's stricture of omitting the letter e!!!