Staged Detection, Ludic Performativity, and Parodic Camp in Donald E. Westlake’s A Travesty

Donald E. Westlake’s concise novel, A Travesty (1977), lampoons the idea of performativity associated with the traditional whodunit of “Golden Age” crime fiction. When called on to assist police in four homicide cases, self-absorbed film critic Carey Thorpe, who never stops boasting about his Holmesian powers of observation reinforced by deductive logic, proves an asset. The novel progresses from a “closed-room” tale of detection to noir when the protagonist intentionally commits two murders to escape arrest. Largely overlooked by literary scholars, Westlake as a prolific author of popular fiction warrants wider recognition for his virtuosity as a ludic satirist in the American grain.