When Professor Humberto Ossmann and Dr. Clematis Woodley, who heartily despised each other in life, are found together in a mortal embrace, Norman de Ratour knows that evil once again stalks the hallowed precincts of the Museum of Man. It has been several years since the museum was wracked by what became known as the "cannibal murders." Many of the same characters -- Malachy Morin, Lieutenant Tracy of the Seaboard Police Department, Constance Brattle of Wainscott University's Oversight Committee, the Reverend Alfie Lopes, Elsbeth, now Norman's beloved wife, and Israel Landes, his devoted friend -- play their parts as an unseemly conspiracy unfolds: A powerful aphrodisiac under development in the Genetics Lab is being used as a murder weapon.Norman, now director of the museum, figuratively dons his deerstalker hat to help the Seaboard police find and bring the miscreants to justice. The Love Potion Murders in the Museum of Man takes black comedy to philosophical heights, exploring the human (and inhuman) condition and seeking to redeem it through humor in a novel that combines parody and murder mystery suspense.
From the Trade Paperback edition.
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Creators
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Series
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Publisher
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Release date
November 3, 2010 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9781581952377
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9781581952377
- File size: 2071 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Publisher's Weekly
December 1, 2008
At the start of Alcorn's entertaining second Norman de Ratour mystery (after 1997's Murder in the Museum of Man
), Norman, now the Museum of Man's director in the vaguely New England city of Seaboard, ponders the mysterious deaths of two colleagues. The bodies of Prof. Humberto Ossmann and Dr. Clematis Woodley, who detested each other, were discovered in sexual embrace on the floor of the genetics lab where they worked. Grim news about the health of Norman's wife, Elsbeth, and the arrival of her grown daughter, Diantha, throw him into a frenzy of guilt and lust. The fate of a missing anthropological expedition is further cause for concern. Alcorn, a former travel director for a Harvard University museum, illuminates the machinations and turf wars of feuding museums and universities with dark wit. Some readers may find the puns and alliterative names (e.g., food critic Korky Kummerbund) too heavy-handed, but those with a taste for satirical whodunits will be well rewarded. -
Publisher's Weekly
February 2, 2009
At the start of Alcorn's entertaining second Norman de Ratour mystery (after 1997's Murder in the Museum of Man), Norman, now the Museum of Man's director in the vaguely New England city of Seaboard, ponders the mysterious deaths of two colleagues. The bodies of Prof. Humberto Ossmann and Dr. Clematis Woodley, who detested each other, were discovered in sexual embrace on the floor of the genetics lab where they worked. Grim news about the health of Norman's wife, Elsbeth, and the arrival of her grown daughter, Diantha, throw him into a frenzy of guilt and lust. The fate of a missing anthropological expedition is further cause for concern. Alcorn, a former travel director for a Harvard University museum, illuminates the machinations and turf wars of feuding museums and universities with dark wit. Some readers may find the puns and alliterative names (e.g., food critic Korky Kummerbund) too heavy-handed, but those with a taste for satirical whodunits will be well rewarded.
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