Murder Most Stupid

Book excerpt: A horde of dreadful, vulgar, cretinous guests of dubious morals and lapsed honour, in cahoots with a pack of impertinent, bestial, lumpenproletarian staff, frustrate the noble efforts of a brilliant detective to hunt down a murderer. Come join the pursuit, through the luxurious suites, luminous dining halls and stately ballroom of a lush hotel, into a more civilised epoch of the elegant past, in a tome bearing all the hallmarks of an Agatha Christie whodunnit—with the possible exceptions of cleverness, sense, purpose and decency. It is told in a style utterly shorn of extraneous verbiage, compact, exceedingly earnest and reflecting the loftiest aesthetic ideals. It falls exactingly within generic parameters, with no hint of parodic subversion. As far as the zeitgeist is concerned, few would be bold enough, or moronic enough—unmitigated imbeciles, deserving of little more than being hacked to pieces and left in the garden as meat fit for dogs—to deny that this magisterial opus is unstintingly in sync with up-to-the-second trends in political correctness. What more could the thoughtful, intelligent, discerning reader (you) require?