Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit

Longlisted for the ReLit Award

Best Fiction 2006, Ottawa Xpress

Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit is a singularly Canadian novel featuring crime, culture, and sports. Written in the vein of John Kennedy Toole (Confederacy of Dunces) and JP Donleavy, Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit is set in Vancouver during an early 80s Grey Cup weekend. Tourists and sports aficionados have descended on the city in record droves. There are, however, a few folks who have other interests and plans. Three small-time career crooks are planning a heist on one of the city’s exclusive hotels. Enter Harry Pazik Jr., a good ole boy from Calgary, who is inadvertently swept up in the mayhem of the crooks’ boondoggle. Meanwhile, across town at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre, rehearsals of La Traviata are in full swing. The 300-pound stage manager has toppled to the orchestra pit, crushing the tuba player, while Jorgen Thrapp, assistant to the Lighting Director, is busy behind the scenes with his dealings in drugs and numbers running for a crooked printer intent on making a killing on the big game. Everyone gets more than they bargained for in this slapstick Grey Cup-meets-Goodfellas romp.

Praise for Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit:

"... If you've spent any time torturing yourself reading the recent spate of horrid Canadian 'historical' fictions or suffering through Giller-nominated books that make you want to stick sewing needles in your eyes, read this book and bust a gut and revel in delicious, punchy writing, dark and memorable characterizations, intricate plotting and absurdity by the bucketfuls. I couldn't help but gobble this novel in one sitting and I put it down with a shit-eating grin on my face, feeling as though I'd been let in on a secret: Tom Osborne is a Canadian comic genius. ..." (Front & Centre)

"‘Only connect’ was E.M. Forster’s advice to writers, and Osborne connects like a mad electrician in a power plant.” (The Vancouver Sun)

"Tom Osborne’s Dead Man in the Orchestra Pit begins with a film-noir style, moves to a rocking rhythm midway, then gallops madly ...” (Canadian Literature)