Name: Aiding and Abetting
ISBN: 9781782117643

Muriel Spark

Aiding and Abetting is Muriel Spark's mordant and witty satirical take on the true crime genre, a novel of fraudsters, imposters, murderers and aiders and abetters. In Paris, a psychiatrist finds herself treating two elderly gentlemen who both claim to be the notorious British fugitive Lord Lucan. But who, if either, is the real Lord Lucan? Can she discover the truth before her own dark secret is revealed?

Aiding and Abetting

Based on a real London murder case, this witty, subversive novel follows Lord Lucan, a dissolute member of the British aristocracy, into the abyss as he is accused of killing his children's nanny while trying to murder his wife. By the author of The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie. Reprint. 35,000 first printing.

A Novel

Laura

I have only read one Muriel Spark and already I think this woman is a treasure. Aiding and Abetting is a novel I thoroughly enjoyed, from the fraudulent stigmatic psychiatrist to the dual earls. I found myself genuinely rooting for the love story between Hildegard and Jean-Pierre. That being said, I was uninterested in the story of Lacy and her book-writing partner and found it detracted from the compelling tale of which Lord Lucian was which, and who was telling the truth. The ending was also a disappointment. Anyone who’s read or at least is familiar with Black Mischief (my least favorite Waugh) and A Handful of Dust would guess that the adventures of the earls would come to such an end, and I’m not really sure that that was the best way this book could have ended.