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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.
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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.
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