Dirty Tricks - Hardcover

Dibdin, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0671695452 ISBN 13: 9780671695453

Publisher: Summit Books, 1991

Synopsis

Living on the fringe of Oxford society as an ESL teacher, Tim befriends a suburban couple, falling in love with the discontented wife, and soon the two lovers are contemplating murder in the complacent atmosphere of manicured lawns and dinner parties

About this title

From the Inside Flap:

A comedy of manners, a mystery thriller, and a sardonic satire whose deliciously unscrupulous narrator claims that everything he did regarding his victims was "market-led," Dirty Tricks is pure entertainment from one of the most inventive writers around.
When the nameless narrator embarks upon an affair with Karen, a seemingly vapid P.E. teacher married to a boring accountant, he does not know her fetish is for adultery while her husband is in the room or loitering nearby. But once he finds out, he doesn't care. He has been abroad for twenty years, and since his return to merry old England he's been startlingly uninhibited by morals or a conscience. Which is not only why he eventually gets involved with blackmail, a kidnapping, and two murders, but also how, with hilariously syllogistic logic, he's able to justify his role in all of it.

From the Back Cover:

“Superb . . . . It’s just like James M. Cain, only funny. Come to think of it, maybe it’s more just like Nabokov. Only fun.” --The New York Times

“[A] superior piece of noir. . . brisk, absorbing and . . . satisfying.” --The Sunday Times

“Nasty, original, murderously funny entertainment.” --The Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Summit Books
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0671695452
• ISBN 13: 9780671695453
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 241