The Once and Future Con

Nick Madrid #4

by Peter Guttridge

"When the grave of the legendary King Arthur is discovered in the West Country, Nick Madrid and trusty companion Bridget Frost can't resist going in search of Camelot themselves. But instead of chivalrous knights, they find rival heritage-industry marketing men willing to go to any lengths to make money from the discovery. Cue Camelot casinos, Avalon theme parks, medieval Excaliburger banquets, and a frenzy of feuding archaeologists as the tourism and heritage industry goes loopy for Lancelot and company." When Nick does some digging of his own, it's not relics he finds but murder victims. Is there a Camelot-crazy serial killer on the loose? And what about King Arthur himself, who promised to return if his country needed him? If the bones in the West Country grave are his, who is that guy on the white horse riding out of the mists of time?

265 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 1999

About the author

Peter Guttridge is the Royal Literary Fund writing fellow at Southampton University and teaches creative writing. Between 1998 and 2002, he was the director of the Brighton Literature Festival. Since 1998, he has been the mystery reviewer for The Observer, one of Britain's most prestigious Sunday newspapers. He lives in Sussex on the edge of the South Downs National Park.

Reviews

[Renita D'Silva · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved this very funny read. I especially adored Bridget.

[Morgan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I deeply regret randomly picking this book off a library shelf, as well as my foolishness in wanting to finish a book once started. At first I thought "well, it turns out this is book 4 in a series, maybe it would have been better to start with book 1?" But by the end, the book was terrible enough that it doesn't really deserve consideration of excuses as to why.

This is a terrible book in many ways. There are several murders and attempted murders, but that doesn't really seem to be the focus of the book - in that they don't matter, none of the characters seem to actually care about them, and our 'detective' takes no active steps toward their solution. There are numerous dropped plot threads - who was attacking nick? why? why are there people who think they are actually Arthurian Knights returned? - these just never get resolved or explained. The characters universally treat anything sex-related as if it is hilarious, regardless of if there was actually a joke (there are no jokes). This is annoying and a bit off-putting, since for some reason there are a ton of sex-related things in the book.

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 2 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in November 2001.

The recent foot and mouth outbreak has shown how much the British rural economy is dependent on tourism rather than simply on agriculture. This industry is increasingly reliant on heritage, as that is one of the UK's major selling points (the other being the convenience to Americans in particular of being and English speaking nation). This humorous crime novel is set in one particularly important yet controversial part of the tourism industry, the heritage built up around the Arthurian legends.

This is, of course, because the legends have been attached to many (incompatible) places, whether by multiple identifications of names in earlier traditions (as with Camelot) or by downright invention in later ones (as with Tintagel). The total absence of artefacts that can be reliably associated with Arthur - assuming that he even existed, which some doubt - also provides opportunities for the unscrupulous. This could be very lucrative; the best known Arthurian sites, Tintagel and Glastonbury, are among the most visited in the country.

The situation is clearly ripe for satire, especially given that most tourists are not interested in historical accuracy. They want a good time, and for many this means a theme park style experience which is like the films they have seen - fifteenth century jousts not fifth century cattle rustling. The Once and Future Con attempts to do just this, being about a murder investigation during the inauguration of a theme park centred around the supposedly newly discovered bodies of Arthur and Guinevere.

Unfortunately, the novel is neither funny enough to succeed as a satire, nor is the mystery absorbing enough for it to succeed as part of the crime genre. Indeed, I spent quite a lot of time while reading it wondering whether it was worth the effort, and continued mainly because that involved less thought than finding another book to read. It is mildly entertaining, but not as good as the reviews imply that Guttridge's earlier Nick Madrid novels are.

[Michael Smith · Rating 2 out of 5]

This appears to be the fifth in a series of mysteries featuring Nick Madrid, freelance journalist and something of a wimp compared to his unofficial partner, Bridget. In this one, the pair are drawn into investigating a series of deaths relating to the rediscovery of the supposed tomb of Arthur and Guinevere, stolen from Glastonbury Abbey after the Dissolution. Conveniently, it’s located on the property of a Somerset lordling who plans to build an Arthurian theme park on the investments of old college chums and with the assistance of a heavily clichéd American PR man. While Guttridge has a nice, dry wit, and while he has some deservedly acerbic things to say about the distinction between real history and the “heritage industry” in Britain, the mystery plot itself is pretty lame, pretty thin, and wasn’t able to hold my attention past the halfway point. Maybe if I had begun with the first volume, I’d get it -- though a series author ought not to rely on such consideration by the reader, and most successful ones don’t.