‘Conjugal Rites’ by Paul Magrs

Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus. So someone said once and what a load of old claptrap that is. Rare it is though that a man dares to write ‘Women’s Commercial Fiction’ so extensively and imaginatively (I dislike the term immensely mainly because there isn’t a category for ‘Men’s Commercial Fiction’ – I probably need another 2000 words to explain that fully and this is a Book Review not a post-post-modernist-feminist-egalitarian diatribe).

Yes, ‘Conjugal Rites’ is camp, of course it is. It’s quirky and whimsical and it’s delightfully fanciful. One of the wonderful (and sometimes horrible) things about humans is all the shapes, sizes and flavours we come in – something Magrs celebrates in his work.

I haven’t read a Magrs before so missed the two, ‘Never the Bride’ and ‘Something Borrowed’, that preceded this one, ‘Conjugal Rites’, and most Magrs fans are now on his recent release ‘Helle’s Belle’s’ (I read the first two chapters at the end of this one and Robert has a new boyfriend and it all sounds very exciting!). Brenda and Effie are Magr’s super-sleuthing team – a pair of old ladies in Whitby. Well, one’s an old witch and the other’s the two-hundred year old Bride of Frankenstein. Robert’s Robin to their Batman and there are all sorts of dastardly frenemies to take on in the fight for their lives. Magrs mixes everything up with great glee – superpowers, a very small abbess who lives in a suitcase, the alternative reality that is Hell, flying beds, Santa Claus – it’s no wonder that his favourite words seem to be ‘kerfuffle’ (also mine) and ‘palaver’.

Underneath all the madcap mayhem there are enduring friendships, acts of loyalty and a few nice slices of life and marriage. The pace and delivery and overall feel of the writing reminded me very much of Janet Evanovich (who I have read extensively if not in totality), whose latest I reviewed on the very first post on this site. I think she pips him on wit but he whoops her ass on amusing absurdity.