Undermajordomo Minor by Patrick deWitt review – a comic tale with a touching protagonist

The Booker-shortlisted The Sisters Brothers was a hard act to follow, but DeWitt’s riff on the folk tale transports the reader to a gothic Europe drawn with relish and bravado

One of the great joys of comic fiction is that it can do anything it wants. It can explore the sexual possibilities of a giant salami, provoke empathy with a merciless killer, or throw the English language into a blender and make it taste like high gastronomy despite the weird colour and the lumps – or perhaps because of them. A male hero can, as here in Undermajordomo Minor, have a girl’s name.

The secret is nerve.

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