Product Description

It is 25 years after Lord Lucan's mysterious disappearance in the wake of the vicious murder of his children's nanny. The celebrated psychiatrist Dr Hildegard Wolf is approached in her Paris consulting rooms by not one, but two men, both claiming tobe Lucan. Dr Wolf is intrigued. Which, if either, of the men is the real 'Lucky' Lucan? And can she discover the truth before her own dark secret is revealed?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #404490 in Books
• Published on: 2001-09-27
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
At the end of the 20th century, an Englishman in his 60s walks into the Paris practice of famed Bavarian psychiatrist Dr Hildegard Wolf and announces that he is the missing Lord Lucan. But Hildegrad, key protagonist of Muriel Spark's new novel Aiding and Abetting, is already treating one Lord Lucan, and they both have dirt on her--for isn't she really Beate Pappenheim, the fraud who used her menstrual blood to fake her stigmata? Increasingly obsessed with the Lucans, and fearing for her safety, Hildegard flees to London where her path inevitably crosses that of two British Lucan-hunters...

The seventh earl of Lucan disappeared on 7 November 1974, leaving behind him the battered body of his children's nanny Sandra Rivett and a beaten wife. Lucan´s sensational story and the possibilities of his whereabouts over the past quarter century provide Spark with several issues with which wittily to play: identity, blood ("it is not purifying, it is sticky"), class (working class nannies bleed more than the aristocracy), the dynamics of psychiatry ("most of the money wasted on psychoanalysis goes on time spent unravelling the lies of the patient"). But it remains a strange, slight affair--its unspoken tenet being that the Lucan case still preys on the communal mind of the British public, its details (like his penchant for smoked salmon and lamp chops) indelibly printed there. For anyone under 30 that's a difficult argument to swallow, and for good reason. As one wise character puts it "Few people today would take Lucan and his pretensions seriously, as they rather tended to do in the 70s". Times have changed--and perhaps that's Spark's point, that the "psychological paralysis" that allowed Lucan to escape is now long gone. --Alan Stewart

About the Author
Muriel Spark's many novels include Memento Mori, The Girls of Slender Means, A Far Cry From Kensington, The Prime Of Miss Jean Brodie (adapted for film and theatre), Aiding And Abetting and her final novel, The Finishing School. She was elected C. Litt in 1992 and awarded the DBE in 1993. Dame Muriel received many awards, including the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, the FNAC Prix Etranger, the Saltire Prize, the Ingersoll T. S. Eliot Award and the David Cohen British Literature Prize in recognition of a lifetime's literary achievement. Dame Muriel died in 2006.

Excerpted from Aiding and Abetting by Muriel Spark. Copyright © 2000. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved
It was towards the end of that month that Hildegard asked him her first question.

'What can I do for you?'she said, as if he was positively intruding on her professional time.

He gave her an arrogant look, sweeping her face. 'First,' he said, 'I have to tell you that I'm wanted by the police on two counts: murder and attempted murder. I have been wanted for over twenty years. I am the missing Lord Lucan.'

Hildegard was almost jolted at this. She was currently treating another patient who claimed, convincingly, to be the long-missing lord. She suspected collusion.

'I suppose,' said the man at present sitting in her office, 'that you know my story.' She did indeed know his story. She knew it as thoroughly as anyone could, except for the police, who naturally would keep some secrets to themselves.

Hildegard had gathered books, and obtained press-cuttings dating from 1974, when the scandal had broken, to the present day. It was a story that was forever cropping up. The man In front of her, aged bout sixty-five, looked very like the latest police identikit of Lord Lucan, but so in a different way did the other patient.

The man sitting in front of her had reached down for his briefcase. 'The story is all here,' he said, tapping the bulging bag.

'Tell me about it,' she said.
Yes, in fact, let us all hear about it, once more. Those who were too young or even unborn at the time should be told, too. The Lord Lucan with whom this story is concerned was the seventh Earl of Lucan. He was born on 18th December 1934. He disappeared from the sight of his family and most of his friends on the night of 7th November 1974, under suspicion of having murdered his children's nanny and having attempted to murder his wife. The murder of the girl had been an awful mistake. He had thought, in the darkness of a basement, that she was his wife. The inquest into the death of the nanny, Sandra Rivett, ended in a verdict 'Murder by Lord Lucan' and a warrant of his arrest. As for his wife, Lady Lucan's account of that night fitted in with the findings of the police in all relevant details. However, the police had one very strongly felt complaint: the missing Earl had been aided and abetted in his movements subsequent to the murder. His upper-class friends, said the police, had helped the suspect to get away and cover his tracks. Hey mocked the police, they stonewalled the enquiries. By the time Lord Lucan's trail had been followed to any likely destination he could have been far away, or dead by his own hand. Many, at the time, believed he had escaped to Africa, where he had friends and resources.

From time to time throughout the intervening years 'sightings' of the missing suspect have been reported. The legend had not been allowed to fade. On 9th July 1994 the Daily Express wrote about him and the frightful end of Sandra Rivett by mistaken identity.
The work, it appeared, of a madman or someone deranged by pressure beyond his control...His cheques were bouncing all over smart Belgravia, the school fees had not been paid, he had overdrafted at four banks, borrowed money from a lender (at 18 percent interest), £7,000 from playboy Taki and £3,000 from another Greek. His mentor, gambler Stephen Raphael, had also lent him £3,000.
On the night of 7th November 1974, the basement of his wife's house was dark. The light-bulb had been removed. Down the stairs came a woman. Lucan struck not his wife but the nanny. 'When is Sandra's night off?' he had asked one of his daughters very recently. 'Thursday,' she said. But that Thursday Sandra did not take her evening off; instead she went down to the kitchen to make a cup of tea for herself and Lucan's estranged wife. Sandra was bashed and bludgeoned. She was stuffed into a sack. Bashed also was Lucan's wife when she came down to see what was the matter. She bit him; she had got him by the balls, unmanned him, offered to do a deal of complicity with him and then, when he went to the bathroom to wash away the blood, slipped out of the house and staggered a few yards down the street to a pub into which she burst, covered with blood. 'Murder!...the children are still in the house...'

He had tried to choke her with a gloved hand and to finish her with the same blunt instrument by which Sandra was killed.

The police arrived at the house. The Earl had fled. He had telephoned his mother telling her to take care of the children, which she did, that very night.

The Earl was known to have been seen briefly by a friend. Then lost. Smuggled out of the country or dead by his own hand?
The good Dr Wolf looked at her patient and let the above facts run through her head. Was this man sitting in front of her, the claimant to be Lord Lucan, in fact the missing murder suspect? He was smiling, smiling away at her thoughtfulness. And what had he to smile about?

She could ring Interpol, but had private reasons not to do so.

She said, 'There is another "Lord Lucan" in Paris at the moment. I wonder which of you is the real one? Anyway, our time is up. I will be away tomorrow. Come on Friday.'

'Another Lucan?'

'I will see you on Friday.'

Customer Reviews

Classic farce.
This is a real treat to read, with a wonderfully appropriate grande finale which depends on surprise! A unique and suspenseful twist on the traditional murder mystery, this novel features wacky, off-the-wall characters--including two men who claim to be the murderer Lord Lucan, a variety of aristocratic "aiders and abettors" who have protected and financially supported him for twenty-five years, a psychiatrist who was once a phony stigmatic but who is now treating both "Lucans," and several former acquaintances who now want Lucan caught, only 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 plot is very 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's 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

Satire, Irony, and Farce
The absurdities of the upper classes often amuse readers, and this one is excellent in that regard. Being the 7th Earl of Lucan doesn't mean that you have any sense, have any purpose in your life, or do any good. Regardless of all that, people will rally around to help him . . . because of the old school tie and all that.
Ms. Spark seems to have imagined her ending, and then simply developed a plot that could connect that back to the real-life murder and attempted murder that form the basis of the book.

The second story line is about a fake stigmatic from Bavaria who disappeared after stealing donated funds. Being at least a little imaginative, Beate Pappenheim will appeal to more readers than Lord Lucan will. However, she wasn't really necessary for the joke, but does give Ms. Spark the ability to stretch a short story into a novella.

To stir up a little interest, the book has a small mystery to solve. Who is Lord Lucan? In pursuing this idea of identity, the book takes off on modern psychiatry . . . basically pointing out that there's not much there. Ms. Pappenheim pretends to be a psychiatrist, ignores all the rules, and still creates a series of very devoted patients who depend on her.

Ms. Spark also explores imagery in many significant ways to develop her story. Blood is the key image. Blood ties the upper classes together. Blood is part of a woman's monthly cycle. A messy murder causes blood to be spilled. Being able to use blood in new ways creates opportunity for Ms. Pappenheim. Being able to describe what it's like to kill in cold blood is a way to identify Lord Lucan. And so on. Ms. Sharp shows her writing brilliance in these ways.

Ultimately, I was sorry that she didn't pick a more worthy subject for her humor. Lord Lucan seems like such a useless person that it seems like a waste of one's time to even have to think about him. That could have been overcome by spending more time satirizing those who helped him, but, alas, she did not do that.

If you do decide to read the book, think about who would stick by you no matter what you had done. Why would they? How can you develop more close ties who would do the same, not because they will need to do so, but because you will benefit from that kind of close relationship?

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Another excellent novel from one of the finestwriters around
Muriel Spark is one of the most entertaining, imaginative, and endlessly daring writers around. Her use of language is astounding and the way she plays with and subverts your expectations is masterful. I've read half of a dozen of her novels and most of her stories and Aiding and Abetting is definitely one I would recommend. She's a truly great writer.