Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

One house, ten contestants, thirty cameras, and forty microphones. Everybody knows the rules--total strangers are forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. However, on day 27, one of the housemates is killed on live TV. Who is the murderer? How did they manage to kill under the constant gaze of the television cameras? Why did they do it? And who will be next?

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

A bestseller in the U.K., Dead Famous, by Ben Elton (High Society), combines the traditional whodunit with contemporary reality TV to hilarious result. TV personality Elton may lack brand-name recognition here, but this murderous tale of 10 contestants stuck in a house with 30 cameras and 40 microphones has real appeal, particularly to the young and hip. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Kirkus Book Review

The British reality TV series House Arrest- "One house. Ten contestants. Thirty cameras. Forty microphones. One survivor"-goes its American counterpart Big Brother one better in its pandering to voyeurism. Powerhouse producer Geraldine Hennessy has cameras in the showers, mandates semi-clothed activities, and keeps the temperature in the house extra high, the better to stimulate nudity and sex. Enter crusty Inspector Coleridge, who's watching a tape from Day 29 of House Arrest, when one of the housemates was murdered by a blurry figure in a white sheet: an audacious crime completely captured on video. Alternating between Coleridge's investigation and accounts of House Arrest from Day 1 on, Elton (Inconceivable, 2000, etc.) offers three mysteries: the identities of the victim (which he withholds as long as possible), the killer, and the House Arrest winner. The contestant/suspects, who are entertaining enough to sustain a satirical novel sans murder, include Jazz, an aspiring black standup comedian; Sally, a humorless lesbian feminist; David, a handsome "serious" actor with a hidden porn past; Dervla, an Irish waif with soulful eyes; and Woggle, an anarchist who never bathes. Far from dampening audience interest or causing the show's cancellation, the murder turns up the heat and provides the stage for an old-fashioned melodramatic finale. Coleridge, who finds the mystery's solution in the pages of Macbeth and is inspired by a recent amateur theater audition, delivers a rousing, albeit shaggy, "the identity of the killer is" speech in order to ferret out same. A delicious high-tech twist on the traditional locked-room mystery, and a fast, funny read.