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Double Negative
David Carkeet
#UB4262
Paperback, 223 pages; 2005 (1980)
$14.95
 Members' Price: $12.71
Bas Bleu is proud to offer fourteen novels published by Felony & Mayhem, specialists in saving classic, plot-driven mysteries from extinction! Publisher Maggie Topkis has selected these titles especially for Bas Bleu's readers. She's written most of the reviews on these four pages. Look for her initials (MT) to see why she likes what she likes!
Nominated for an Edgar award (for distinguished work in the mystery genre) when it first came out in 1980, Double Negative is something of a cult favorite. It shows up on just about every authoritative list of the best mysteries of the twentieth century, and over the years various pundits have named it their favorite mystery of all time. Very simply, it's a mystery about linguistics, set in a Midwestern institute devoted to studying language acquisition in toddlers. When an academic rival is murdered, the protagonist—a brilliant scholar with the social skills of a fruit fly—is forced to track down the killer in order to clear his own name. The plot is almost secondary to the deliciously dyspeptic portrait of academic infighting. The novel also provides a fascinating glimpse into the linguistic process by which meaning gets attached to sound. It's really quite an extraordinary book, and not like anything else.
(MT)
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