Arthur Blume is a published author, college teacher, and occasional serial killer. The book, based loosely on the author's real-life friendship with a convicted serial killer, switches back and forth from Arthur's past to his present as he attempts to tell the world about what he's really like.

I picked this book up at my office because no one else wanted it. That probably should have been my first clue that it wasn't very good, but I didn't figure that out until I started reading it. It's not bad; it's just boring. Nothing happened for the most part, none of the characters were particularly likable, and I didn't care about what was going through Blume's mind. ( )

Kinder creates a remarkable, consistent, compelling voice here . . . until the very end where things fall apart a bit--where the narrator's rationalizations seem utterly out of character. Maybe there's some sense to why this is so, but the book closes rather too quickly to bring that sense of things home to the reader. Generally very fine, though. Even drops a (very appropriate) reference to John Gardner's Grendel. ( )

An Absolute Gentleman is an immensely enjoyable read. I did not find a single dull moment in it, unlike scores of books of popular authors who fill up pages of irrelevant and boring info inorder to have a 300 plus pages book.
The way the author has the protagonist (the narrator himself) analyze the personalities of the characters adds to his charming personality, a seemingly harmless and amiable, intelligent though shrewd man. How his relationship with his mother is shown to cause him to become a coldhearted murderer, is very effective.
I like to read books of female authors who make the protagonist narrator male and vice versa, to see if they do justice to the opposite sex.
In one place the narrator notices the girl wearing little or no mascara that I found to be unrealistic, unless his mother had worn makeup or if he had grown up with sisters but he had not.unless a guy is effeminately inclined. or he says at another place she wore a mesh bracelet. men do not notice women's jewelry in so much detail. but these are unimportant bits.in all the book is very well written. ( )

Interesting. Quick read. ( )

Arthur Blume is a quiet, mild-mannered professor who occasionally murders people. His mother was also