The Bactra Review: Occasional and eclectic book reviews by Cosma Shalizi 7
Death in the Fifth Position, Death Before Bedtime
and Death Likes It Hot
by Edgar Box
Nominally, these are murder mysteries, set in the early 1950s, solved by one
Peter Sargent II, a New York public relations man. In fact, they are bright
and satirical little comedies by Gore Vidal, written when he was blacklisted
for The City and the Pillar, a serious novel where sex between men
was presented as perfectly normal. (Mr. Vidal rightly insists that the word
``homosexual'', if must be used, is an adjective, not a noun.) Sargent is
Vidal's mouthpiece, particularly when he talks about the American ruling class
--- or classes. The mystery is feeble. This is irrelevant; Vidal is always
vastly entertaining company, and the books are charming relics of the heyday of
the American Empire.
Not currently in print. Various paperback and hardback editions between
the 1950s and the early 1990s.
Mysteries /
North America
July 1994, last substantive change 22 August 1995