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Good Murder: A William Power Mystery

A William Power Mystery

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Good Murder: A William Power Mystery

By: Robert Gott
Narrated by: Paul English
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It's 1942, and war is raging in Europe and in the Pacific. The Japanese army is on Australia's doorstep, and the small coastal Queensland town of Maryborough is on full war footing. What they are not prepared for is the arrival in the town of a troupe of incompetent actors whose unjustifiably self-confident leader, William Power, is determined to bring his daring production of Titus Andronicus to the barbarians of rural Australia. Unfortunately for the Power Players, the only gift William Power has is a capacity for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. When a young woman goes missing and is found floating dead in the town's water supply, Power becomes the prime suspect in her murder. With every misplaced step he takes, he becomes more and more embroiled in a series of crimes which baffle the police and horrify the locals. Having no confidence in the constabulary, Power decides that his only option is to solve the crimes himself. His acting skills are not good; his detection skills are worse. As he stumbles towards a solution and as his injuries mount up, he never wavers in his belief that he alone can bring the killer to justice. But, with every day that passes, he tightens the noose around his own neck until, on the night of a violent storm, everything changes. And not for the better.©2004 Robert Gott (P)2005 Louis Braille Audio Crime Fiction Historical Fiction Literature & Fiction Mystery Suspense Thriller & Suspense Crime Fiction War
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There's a variant of the "Mary Sue" in literary criticism called the "Sympathetic Sue." A character who the entire universe of the story still revolves around and is twisted to serve. But not to idealise them as in the case of the original Mary Sue archetype, but to make them an object of pity as the entire fictional world and every character in it goes out of their way to make them suffer endlessly and needlessly in defiance of all logic, reason, self-interest and common sense. And long story short, in this novel at least, William Power is definitely a Sympathetic Sue. Because on top of being falsely accused of multiple murders, he appears to be hated and scorned by almost everyone, as well as being used and betrayed by the women who pretended to care. The fact that he always appears to be in the wrong place at the worst possible time, always walking in on dead bodies is even called out as being suspicious, when no, it's merely lazy writing. And far from proving his innocence, Power's bungled attempts to catch the real culprit only lead to even more disasters and result in him being further shunned, scorned and despised; with at least one person still genuinely believing that he and the killer were in cahoots.

On top of which, the actual solution to the murders was the mystery novel equivalent of 'A Wizard Did It;' rendering all investigation, clues and attempts to decern the killer's motive, and therefore, the main, overarching reason to listen to a murder mystery novel null and void. So in short, unless you really hate some poor stage actor named William Power in real life, (which is the only possible reason I can imagine why the author wrote this pile of fertilizer,) then there is absolutely no reason to listen to it.

A Sickeningly Bitter Disappointment

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