DEAD WHITE MALES
by Ann Diamond

BOOK DESCRIPTION AND REVIEWS - EXCERPT

 

Raymond Chandler and Philip K. Dick meet Virginia Woolf in this unconventional whodunit in which Dennings' very life depends on finding the solution that lies buried within an elusive master's thesis. Will he make it before the hourglass runs out? - Publisher DC Books

Synopsis:

Who is Vera A. Utall? Why has she entwined celebrity Nick Maggot and legendary literary genius Orville Goner in her sexual web? Soft-boiled private eye (and hairdresser) David Dennings is hired to track the vanished siren. Through a hallucinatory labyrinth only Ann Diamond could have created, the trail leads him to the nefarious Dead White Males.

David Dennings is a detective with a difference: he also cuts hair on the side. The sign on his door reads, "No hair too thin, no case too small." But when ageing rock star Nick Maggot shows up in his salon in the middle of a Montreal blizzard, Dennings finds himself on a dangerous quest that will change his career and his life, beyond recognition...

Reviews

"Set against the backdrop of Montreal in cold winter, along the lines of The Big Sleep meets Brazil meets Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. [The hero, detective David] Dennings wanders through Montreal and Venezuela stumbling through surreal twists and turns, [and] Ann Diamond delivers an ending tying up all loose ends - with, of course, the requisite twist. The repartee, snappy phrasing, betrayals and sense of desperation - all traits of the classic Humphrey Bogart flick - work well in a theatre of the absurd. In fact, Dead White Males is one of those rare books that would, on a second reading, like the second viewing of a film, glean more fine detail and laughter."
- The Antigonish Review

“If you're tired of pretentious Canadian literary experiences and want a good story that keeps you laughing, Ann Diamond’s Dead White Males is a heartening change.”
- James Moran, July 2002 Review - read more

“The plot moves quickly between Canada and South America and between reality and whatever else is out there, so that the only thing the reader can do is let go and be taken along, laughing all the way.”
- Patty Osborne, GEIST, spring 2001

“[Dead White Males]is nutty, paranoid, messy and a great deal of fun. A must for Ann Diamond fans.”
- The Montreal Gazette

“Whether they fight their battles in the fantastic or realistic world, Diamond's women seem to use their involvement with brutish, insensitive men as acts of defiance...”
- Mary Frances Hill, Books in Canada

...will bemuse fans of traditional mysteries, but satisfy those with a taste for unconventional narratives.
- Canadian Book Review Annual, 2000

“Dead White Males is a paean to postmodernism, with its elaborate pastiche of texts, narrators, hallucinatory fragments, dream visions, and echoic episodes...”
- Canadian Literature, 2003

"...The only thing the reader can do is let go and be taken along, laughing all the way." - Geist Magazine, spring, 2001

"...a good story that keeps you laughing, Ann Diamond's Dead White Males is a heartening change." - Antigonish Review, spring, 2002