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MURDER IN THE MUSEUM OF MAN
By: Alfred Alcorn
Zoland Books: Cambridge, Massachusetts
1997 (pb)
Murder in the Museum of Man is quite different
from almost every other novel reviewed in this series. Almost without
exception they have been thrillers, mysteries, or horror novels. This
little gem is a murder mystery, but one of the most hilarious efforts this
reviewer has read in years. It is a hilarious send-up of the idiosyncrasies
and eccentricities, indeed the idiocies, of academia.
The narrative is related in the pages of “unauthorized
and unofficial entries” in the Log of the Museum of Man, penned by Recording
Secretary and as we quickly find out, amateur sleuth, Norman de Ratour.
Norman is the latest in a long line of Recording Secretaries of the Museum
of Man (referred to throughout the novel as MOM) and it is obvious that this
somewhat prissy fellow, known by the sobriquet of “Bow Tie” by his boss,
takes this position in the Museum hierarchy very seriously. While trained
as an archaeologist—he does have a certain disdain for fieldwork—it is a bit
unclear whether he does anything else at the Museum than to perform
the duties of Recording Secretary for the institution’s governing board.
There are several subtexts that run throughout the
course of the adventure, but one of the most important is the historical and
continuing efforts by Wainscott University to essentially absorb the Museum
of Man into its bureaucratic maw, casting especially avaricious
institutional eyes upon Mom’s Genetics Lab and Primate Pavilion. To this
end, Wainscott has sent Cranston Fessing to MOM as “visiting administrative
dean,” to sniff out possible financial improprieties within the museum’s
operations. Fessing goes missing and after a brief passage of time, his
horribly murdered and cannibalized remains are found in a dumpster behind
Atwood Hall, the gender studies building. Norman resolves to take on the
mystery of the late dean’s unhappy demise, while at the same time fighting
against Wainscott’s persistent incursion upon MOM’s integrity and
independence, AND doing daily battle with his unctuous boss, the cultural
philistine (to Norman’s way of thinking) Malachy (“Call me Mal”) Morin.
The number of prime suspects mounts with each passing
day and Norman soon finds himself overwhelmed with the plausible and
possible perpetrators of this heinous crime. There is Damon Drex, the
clearly delusional director of the Primate Pavilion, whose experiments with
chimps seem well beyond the pale of even weird science; there is
anthropologist Cornelius Chard, outspoken proponent (in an academic sense,
of course) of anthropophagy (cannibalism); there are Professor Gottling,
head of the Genetics Lab and his financial angel, Mr. Onoyoko of Onoyoko
Pharmaceuticals, who might fear takeover of their somewhat suspect sperm
bank experiments if Wainscott should prevail in its takeover bid; there is
paleoanthropologist Thad Pilty, whose pet project (read: obsession) to build
a permanent Neanderthal diorama in Mom, was undergoing skeptical scrutiny by
the late visiting Dean Fessing; there is also anthropologist-emeritus Raul
Brauer, who according to MOM lore and legend, went “native” years before,
and along with a number of grad students and other academic assistants,
killed and ate one of the volunteers, in an effort to re-create the rituals
of the primitive Rangu tribe they were studying on the island of Loa Hoa in
the South Pacific. Museum records indicate that both Cornelius Chard and
Thad Pilty were both assistants on this (allegedly) ill-fated expedition.
Another “Visiting Administrative Dean” (Oliver Scrabbe)
is dispatched from the hallowed administrative halls of Wainscott to MOM and
he soon goes missing and only his severed head is discovered. This adds to
the list of suspects the person of Alger Wherry, the MOM Curator of the
Skull Collection, who, as it turns out, was also a member of the Brauer Loa
Hoa project!
The twists and turns of this incredible romp through
murderous mayhem as well as academic mayhem are too numerous and convoluted
to go into any further, but suffice it to say that Norman doggedly pursues
the answer to these crimes, in great part as a pitiful and pathetic attempt
to win back the heart (and body) of his long lost love, Elsbeth, and that
the final solution to the crimes committed is both surprising (in its Agatha
Christie-like denouement) and not surprising (in that it is hilarious).
For a delightful laugh-out-loud read, I give Murder
in the Museum of Man four trowels—five, if my editor allowed it!
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