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Dead Famous
Dead Famous
Apr 3, 2026 5:59 PM

Author:Ben Elton

Dead Famous

One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones.

Yet again the public gorges its voyeuristic appetite as another group of unknown and unremarkable people submit themselves to the brutal exposure of the televised real-life soap opera, House Arrest.

Everybody knows the rules: total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Who will crack first? Who will have sex with whom? Who will the public love and who will they hate? All the usual questions. And then, suddenly, there are some new ones.

Who is the murderer? How did he or she manage to kill under the constant gaze of the thirty television cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?

Reviews

Big up to Ben Elton and respect, big time. Top, top book

—— Mail on Sunday

Wry, fast and fiendishly clever

—— The Times

A book with pace and wit, real tension, a dark background theme and a big on-screen climax

—— Independent

The perfect modern-day whodunit. A cracking read full of hilarious insights into the Big Brother phenomenon

—— Mirror

One of the best whodunits I have ever read...a funny, gripping, hugely entertaining thriller, but also a persuasive, dyspeptic account of the way we live now, with our insane, inane cult of the celebrity

—— Sunday Telegraph

A story that is startlingly strange, in the best sense-pitch-perfect prose

—— The New Yorker

This first novel is undeniably rich: a tale woven around the importance of faith, whether in imaginary friends or undiscovered treasures, and the strength of family

—— The Times

The year's most impressive debut

—— John Carey , Sunday Times

Like Donna Tartt’s "The Secret History" or a good film noir . . . Jane’s low-key narration has just the right tone to keep readers hooked

—— People magazine

The strength of 'The Lake of Dead Languages' is a silken prose that lures the reader into Goodman’s . . . story of murder, suicide . . . revenge, and madness

—— The Washington Post Book World

Part suspense, part coming-of-age, and all-enthralling . . . A book that needs the roar of a fire to ward off its psychic chill

—— The Denver Post
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