Aiding and Abetting

Wasn't sure what to expect from Muriel Sparks and was pleasantly surprised by the wit and charm of her novel. It's not exactly a mystery, and not exactly a comedy - but it delivers on both - and leaves the reader delighted and wanting more.

This is a real treat to read, with a wonderfully appropriate grand finale which depends on surprise! A unique and suspenseful twist on the traditional murder mystery, this novel is based on the real-life character of Lord Lucan, who in 1974 killed his children's nanny by mistake instead of killing his wife. Though he vanished and has never been found, many have suspected that he has been housed and hidden over the years by a series of aristocratic friends. In this satiric approach to the true-crime genre, Spark gives us wacky, off-the-wall characters--including two men who claim to be the "real" Lord Lucan. Adding to the dramatic mix are variety of aristocratic "aiders and abettors" who have protected and financially supported Lucan for twenty-five years, a psychiatrist who was once a phony stigmatic but who is now treating both "Lord Lucans," and several former acquaintances who now want Lucan caught, not because they believe that murder is wrong, but because times have changed--"Lucky Lucan failed to show up [for questioning], which was really lowering our standards....he was a very great bore." Satiric and mordantly critical of aristocratic pretension, this is vintage Spark. Her plotting is tight, with no loose ends and no digressions, and her selection of details is exquisitely careful and controlled. Her themes and motifs, especially those of blood as it relates to both crime and breeding, are so intricately connected to all the characters and the plot, that it is difficult to discuss them without giving away the clever plot twists. And Spark does all this in less than two hundred pages. It is impossible not to read this at a gallop to find out what happens--while smiling the whole time at Spark's wry wit. Mary Whipple

Muriel Sparks' latest novel "Aiding & Abetting" doesn't take up much shelf space but sure proves the adage that less may be more ! This psychological thriller, based on the unsolved Lord Lucan murder mystery, is so cleverly constructed and seamlessly meshed with the subject of another true story - that of the fake stigmatic Beate Pappenheim - I found myself unable to stop until I finished it in one sitting. Sparks' ingenious plotting is once again evident in the way the pulsating narrative takes unexpected twists and turns that keeps you in total suspense with the unyielding promise of a surprise ending. I felt my heart thumping and my mind racing just watching the two Lucans and Hildegarde and their aiders connive and plot to outwit each other. The novel may have taken class as its starting point but it is blood that binds their fate. Nobody writes like Sparks these days. Her dry wit and rare economy with words make for an eloquence that is both unique and unparalleled. It is also a hallmark of great writing. "Aiding & Abetting" may be her best work in recent times. This slim novel sure packs a wallop. It comes highly recommended.

Muriel Spark hasn't lost her touch. AIDING AND ABETTING isn't one of her very best novels (of her more recent books I prefer REALITY AND DREAMS, although AIDING AND ABETTING is far superior to SYMPOSIUM), but it's still a very good book.As one reviewer below notes, a curious doubling is one of the tropes of this book--mistaken and overlapping identities mask, I suspect, a concern with lack of identity. Spark handles her various themes with her usual grace, wit, and, most importantly, economy. This book is 166 pages, and Spark uses every one of them well (even when she tells us something twice, we can be sure it is for a good reason).One final note: AIDING AND ABETTING and DECLARE make for interesting comparison. I have no idea whether Muriel Spark and Tim Powers have much overlap in audience, but perhaps they should. They write very different books, but these two show an interesting coincidence of subject matter. Powers and Spark investigate the possibilities of infamous British aristocrats, in Powers' case Kim Philby, and in Spark's Lord Lucan. The Burgess and Maclean case comes up in both books, and the idea of the decaying English aristocracy as letting them and Lucan escape in a fit of apathy, disbelief, class loyalty, and moral paralysis is important to both writers' aims. Spark conjures up a future for Lucan while Powers' fantasy of history "explains" Philby and indeed the entire Cold War. Doubling, noted above as key to Spark's book, is equally important to Powers, on a more fantastic level. In the end, they take different approaches: Powers' Philby is fascinating, complex, sad and deservedly damned; Spark's Lucan is a study in the banality and triviality of evil. There is mystery, but Lucan is too small to be of great interest to his own story.

Everything in *Aiding and Abetting* is doubled--the characters, the plot lines, the language, even the title. And this division runs through the book and gives it a strangely opaque equipoise in the midst of its frenetically jammed incidents and its plethora of characters. All this in 166 pages! The tone is moral, but the perspective from which judgments should emanate is not immediately apparent, though we are presented with villains and rogues aplenty. The result is a breathless and giddy novel, like many of her others. How much pleasure this affords you I suppose is a matter of personal taste, but I loved every balanced sentence of it, and I found its deadpan hilarity so captivating that my immediate reaction on finish it the first time was to start it again. Muriel Spark is inimitable; this is one of her best.