Murder is anything but civilized in Copp's London-based third whodunit (after 2004's The Actor's Guide to Adultery
), a riff on Agatha Christie as if channeled by a young Dame Edna. Jarrod Jarvis, has-been actor and gay amateur sleuth, has snagged a pivotal role in Murder Can Be Civilized
, a West End play by Wallace Goodwin, the writer who catapulted the boy Jarrod—now a well-preserved 34—to TV stardom. Since Jarrod's latest slasher film flopped, he longs for a hit to please his lover, LAPD cop Charlie Peters. Though thrilled to be working with Claire Richards, a formidable Oscar-winning actress, Jarrod smells trouble when Richards drops dead after the first performance. With his usual nose for clues, Jarrod embarks "on yet another journey to uncover the truth," complicated by Charlie's vanishing with a South Asian hunk. Splice in a missing Oscar, another murder, a cast of irresistible suspects—among them, Claire's Irish boyfriend Liam; Goodwin and wife Katrina; Brit theater icon Dame Sylvia Horner; Bollywood sexpot Akshay Kapoor; and obnoxious director Kenneth Shields—and open the envelope please: another Copp winner. Agent, William Morris. (Nov.)
