Books in Brief: The Riverside Villas Murder

The Riverside Villas Murder, by Kingsley Amis (Harcourt, 224 pp., $6.95). Kingsley Amis is a fine writer who tends to dabble—ghost stories, spy stuff, and now a bit of sleuthing. In the meantime, those of us who believe Lucky Jim to be one of the best comic novels of the century are impatiently waiting for him to discover that he’s just too talented an author to write successful cheap fiction. In this attempt, a boy discovers sex against a murder-mystery backdrop. Neither the discovery nor the detection is satisfying. What does satisfy, however, is Amis’ way with characters. His may be the best secondary characters—most notably, his old men—since Dickens. And equally satisfying is his style, the often-complex sentences falling clear and true with that deceptive ease that marks the master craftsman. And there is no better writer of dialogue practicing today. But none of this justifies a shoddy vehicle. Amis no doubt believed the sex-murder combination would be a financial sure thing. But the mystery isn’t engaging enough to bring out the whodunit crowd, and the author’s good taste prevents him from writing successful pornography. Having said all this, however, let me hasten to add that critics are always hardest on their favorite authors, from whom they expect more. And although we don’t get what we hope for here, bad Amis is still better than the best products of most of his contemporaries.