Book Title:  The Humbugs Diet

Author: Robert Majzels

Publishing Company:  The Mercury Press

Year:  2007

# of Pages: 176

ISBN #:  978-1-55128-130-8

$18.95 Canada

$17.95 USA 

3 Stars 

Reviewed By: Deborah Ground Buckner 

The Humbugs Diet by Robert Majzels is billed as “a breathless whodunit” with a fascinating premise:  Subsidized residents of an upscale retirement home are being murdered to free up rooms that could be leased for higher rates.  (Humbugs are a type of candy served in the home).  Unfortunately, this is only a hopeful teaser. The real story is the self reflections of an old man that are much more about philosophy than whodunit. 

Not to say this makes The Humbugs Diet a bad book. To the contrary, it is a fascinating story—once one gets over the disappointment of discovering it is a different story than what it was billed to be (this is much the same reaction I had to M. Night Shyamalan's The Village; it was a wonderful commentary on society, but I thought I was taking my son to see a “monster” film).   

The Humbugs Diet is narrated by Rotuf Mazal, a retired police detective and neighbor of Claire, the woman who believes an elderly man's fall from a high window was the result of someone trying to rid the home of its subsidized residents (perhaps Claire wrote the summary on the back of the book).  As a storyteller, Mazal leads his readers through many twists and turns. I was reminded of Oliver Douglas trying to get a straight answer from Mr. Kimball, the scatter-brained county agent on the old sit-com Green Acres. Mazal tells the story his way, which is sometimes in first person, sometimes in second person and sometimes in third person, when he desires to step back and look upon himself as well as Claire. Years ago, I thoroughly enjoyed Mary Jane Ward's book of life in a primitive mental hospital, The Snake Pit, which became the basis for an acclaimed film starring Olivia de Havilland. Ward often drifted from third person to second, and the second person sections were gripping, literally pulling the reader into the corridors of the hospital; Mazal's drifts are less compelling and sometimes make one wish he could stay on track just a bit and get on with it so this 176-page story doesn't feel like 500 pages. His wanderings also create confusion at times, since Mazal narrates experiences Claire has in which he was not involved, making one wonder how he has the ability to tell this part of the story. 

The focus of the story shifts from Claire and her theory about a campaign to murder the subsidized residents to the death of her elderly chum in the neighborhood--but not in the retirement home--Professor Heidegger.  Heidegger's death looks like a suicide, but Claire is convinced it is all part of the plot to kill residents, a connection that is tenuous at best. Claire takes a notebook that belonged to the professor, and once Mazal obtains it, the entire focus of the story shifts. Mazal studies the notebook and takes the reader back to cases of his police career and his own prior interactions with Heidegger. As the story progresses, the reader is given a lecture on ancient Jewish law, and many secrets (which shall remain secret in this review so as not to spoil) become revealed, but not in the classic “whodunit” sense, since the reader is never made aware of these events in the past nor given any clues to how they might unravel. Claire's theories take a backseat to this new turn of events, and though a connection is reached in the end, it is not a satisfying link for a reader hoping for a page-turning mystery. 

There are many wonderful turns of phrase through Mazal's relating of events.  His observation that a college campus was a place of “higher yearning” is clever and thoughtful. When he described a police department interrogation room as small and cramped and crowded with detectives and suspects as “Marxian (the Brothers, I mean)," this Groucho fan had a lovely chuckle remembering the over-stuffed stateroom in A Night at the Opera.  Majzel has a wonderful gift for observation and wordplay, resulting in some fascinating phrases. Other characters in the retirement home are seen only briefly, and this is a shame, because Majzel has created some people who promised to be very interesting personalities. 

The Humbugs Diet is an interesting read, and the clever phrases will give rise to a few laughs and some thoughtful pondering, It is not, however, “a breathless whodunit”. 

Robert Majzels is a novelist (Apikoros Sleuth, Hellman's Scrapbook, City of Forgetting), playwright (This Night the Kapo), poet and translator (he won the 2000 Governor General's Award for his translation of France Daigle's Just Fine).  He currently is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the Univeristy of Calgary.