It is a truth universally acknowledged that an Agatha Christie uber-fan who decides to write his own mystery will be influenced by the Queen of Crime. 

Kemper Donovan, host of the Christie-centered podcast All About Agatha, has himself acknowledged this regarding The Busy Body, his second novel but first full-fledged whodunnit. Indeed, I could share some of the elements here that remind me of our beloved author’s oeuvre – but then you’d have to shoot me for spoiling things. (More likely you would send me an anonymous box of chocolates. Or put aconite in my face cream. Or . . . well, you get the idea.) Christie influences aside, Kemper has written a detective novel that is, in fact, very much his own, very of the moment and very funny in a wholly original way. 

Let’s start with the premise: at a guess, we are at the end of 2016, following a fraught presidential election, where an egomaniacal Twitter addict has beat out an intelligent and much-loved woman ex-senator for the job. We never learn the Tweeter’s name, but the ex-senator is the fabulous Dorothy Gibson, who ran as an independent and, for a while, seemed to have a good chance at winning. As I recall, when Hillary lost her election, she went for long walks in the woods to lick her wounds. Dorothy is similarly inspired: she has retreated to her estate in Maine and has decided to distract herself by writing her memoirs. To help her get this job done, she hires one of the most successful ghost writers in the business, a woman named . . . 

And here we have our first mystery: our ghost-writer/narrator/heroine has a mysterious past and we are given no name. I’m going to tread carefully throughout here, for fear of spoiling your pleasure. Suffice it to say that, despite the lack of moniker, the writer comes to life on the page. I would wager that, like me (and like Mr. Donovan himself), she was an English major. She also seems to live, eat, and breathe popular culture because the references to literature and celebrities fly fast and furious on nearly every page. Since so many of these provide much of the book’s humor, I will only mention two: as you may expect, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple each get a nod, and if you have listened to Kemper’s podcast, you won’t be surprised that his beloved Jane Eyre, as well as the late Catherine Brobeck’s preferred Wuthering Heights are also referenced. 

Ms. Nameless is invited to spend the winter at Dorothy’s home to collaborate on the book. She has barely gotten acquainted with the household (including a hot hot security guard named Denny) when a quick trip to Betty’s Liquor Mart introduces her and Dorothy to neighbor Vivian Davis. Vivian and her doctor husband Wayne have rented an enormous space next door to the Gibson manse called the Crystal Palace in order to convince an old school friend of Wayne’s to invest in his new discovery, a sort of artificial skin that may be a boon to burn victims. 

When Vivian turns up drowned in her bathtub a few days later, the fact that her death is being considered a suicide does not reckon with the positive and pushy woman whom our heroines had met, and when they are invited to her funeral, they are surprised but eager to attend. They find the gathering as quirky as the setting, and after a bit of snooping around, the verdict of suicide switches to murder. Once that happens, Dorothy decides to put her own book aside and do some unofficial sleuthing. And with that, our narrator switches from a Boswell to a Watson. It’s nice to see two women investigating together for a change, and I’m happy to say that Ms. Nameless is a whole lot smarter in her position than a certain Captain Hastings. They come across an interesting assortment of suspects and, in true classic mystery fashion, butt heads with an inferior and infuriated police detective with the great name of S.I. Locust who would give even Inspector Slack a run for his money as most annoying cop:

“My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Carney, used to say the best punishment for bad-tempered people was being stuck with themselves, and I believe this adage applies to no one more than SI Locust. He was a magnificently disgruntled man, which is why when I picture him, it’s his great beak of a nose that comes to mind more than anything else. I swear that schnozz could have done Shakespeare, it was so expressive – always up to something, whether scrunching in disgust, flaring in annoyance, or quivering impatiently. Like a product hawked on television late at night, the possibilities were endless.”

Before our heroines can uncover the solution, another murder occurs in dramatic fashion. Ultimately, Dorothy is able to sift fact from fiction and call a gathering of the suspects in the drawing room, where she unmasks a most unpleasant killer. There are good twists to be found here, including a final one that will make it harder for some readers to play armchair detective – which suits me just fine.

I had enormous fun reading The Busy Body, both for its modern take on a traditional crime novel and for a narrator whose neurotic humor came bursting through on every page. The fact that she does not arrive here fully formed, that there are definitely mysteries to uncover about her even after we close the book, makes this all the more intriguing. As the Ghostwriter Series progresses, it will be fun to watch where Ms. Nameless’ further adventures in crime-solving take her and what they reveal about her.

The Busy Body will be released on January 23. It is being published in the U.S. and Australia and will be available as an e-book in the UK.