Ten Dead Comedians

Ten Dead Comedians is a novel written by Fred Van Lente, a guy who is better known for his work in comic books. So, with that background you should expect an unusual plot, and that’s what you get. This sounds a bit like Agatha Christie’s best selling novel And Then There were None because 10 people are lured to a remote island with promise of future employment, and then they are killed one by one – causing havoc among the progressively dwindling survivors. The twist here is that the person who invited the others was none other than Dustin Walker. Walker was a legend for his comic work who sounds like a cross between Milton Berle, Johnny Carson, and Steve Martin. Walker’s victims were all comedians. Walker was well past his prime and essentially retired, but he had become incredibly wealthy. He built a mansion on his own Caribbean island and he issued invitations to each of the comedians to come join him for an undefined project. Given that their own careers were fading, they jumped at the chance to work with Walker, a legend.

The comedians: Steve Gordon, Zoe Schwartz, Dante Dupree, Oliver Rees (Orange Baby Man), Janet Kahn, TJ Martinez, Ruby Ng, William Griffith (Billy the Contractor), and Meredith Ladipo. Upon being dropped off at the island by a boat which promptly left, Walker’s invitees found that the island was deserted, and all food and eating utensils had been removed. All Internet service, telephone lines, and any other means of communicating with the outside world was cut off. Then, as they gathered inside the mansion, the comedians were presented with a video of Walker who accused all of them of committing “crimes against comedy,” and then committing suicide. In the video, Walker ran out of the very room where the group was standing. He jumped from the window which bordered a high cliff. Walker had a rope around his neck, and when the startled group looked out of the window, they saw a body hanging below them. When they tried to pull the body up, the head literally came off. The head and body crashed into the surf below and were promptly swept out to sea. But what this real, or was it just another Walker gag?

The group argued about their circumstances even after the first to die was Billy the Contractor who was poisoned when he drank a can of beer. Then Janet Kahn was killed by a shotgun blast when she sat down in a booby-trapped chair. And so it continued. The dialogue among the comedians, all experts at dealing with hecklers, was classic. I’ll leave the end of the story to you to read – but this is a unique and clever story. It gets my recommendation.