Stab him repeatedly with a tusk to make it look as if he was gored to death by wild boars.
Lure him to a deserted village, then fly over in an ultralight plane and drop a hive of angry bees on him. Curses, this one was thwarted by a beautiful German photographer who roared up in a Maserati and used her fire extinguisher to disperse the bees. How unlucky can you be(e)?
Push him into a vat of wine – bad luck, the local policeman happened to be passing and heard his shouts. Sloppy – I would have hit him on the head for good measure.
Dress up as a Cathar warrior monk and shoot him with a crossbow.
When you realise the sleuth is on to you for all these crimes, invite him to your walled estate that’s guarded by ex-Foreign Legionnaires and impossible to escape from. Confess all to him and then invite him to come hunting the next day, making not-so-veiled references to “big game”. This scares the pants off him so of course he will try to escape in the ultra-light aircraft – aha, you’ve filled that up with explosives. So much more fun than just getting one of the Legionnaires to shoot him.
All of these, successful and not, happened in a very silly book I came across recently. I’ll give the first one a pass, even if wild boars had never been seen in the area. The bees caper gets marks for originality but was perhaps overly flamboyant. I’d say this criminal was too much of a smarty-pants. Rather an Elon Musk type. No wonder he ended up dead himself. And believe it or not, it was all about …….truffles. No, I don’t recommend the book. Or the approach. Contact Gert for her useful little handout Murder For Dummies.
Images Wikipedia Commons.
Gert Loveday's Fun with Books 
I always thought that the frozen leg of lamb was pretty clever — I can’t remember whose book that was.
I think it was Roald Dahl. Much too simple for this author.
This author does indeed seem to go for complexity –his undoing in the end?
I couldn’t help but think of the TV series Killing Eve as I read your piece. Have you seen it? Villanelle employs some highly unusual methods to skewer her victims, several inspired by real crimes…
I started watching it but it was a bit too strong for me and I find Eve Oh an absolute pain in the neck. I believe Phoebe Waller-Bridge of Fleabag fame was the writer for the first series. BTW, have you heard Elizabeth Day’s podcast How To Fail? I heard Waller-Bridge interviewed there.
Are we supposed to guess at what your silly book was? Or is it a new Gert Loveday book? Speaking of TV series, Six Feet Under also featured unique ways to die. I haven’t watched Killing Eve yet.
No, the only murder in Gert was a ridiculously bungled attempt in Writing Is Easy. There is a real (accidental) murder in an unpublished book involving a kettle of boiling water.
Chuckle,…good one Gert. Are we to come up with our own clever ways of committing murder? How about the old fashion evil spell?
Leslie
I think that would be very effective if it’s the right spell. No physical evidence and it can’t be traced back to you.
In aboriginal communities here in the past there used to be “pointing the bone”, where people died if they thought someone had done that- put a curse on them. Don’t know if it still works.
Have to give a try. There are a few people I would like to put a spell on…..
I don’t know why, this put me in mind of an illustrated book entitled 101 Uses for a Dead Cat… Could be full of good points of how to deal with the bodies after these grisly murders?
I’ll leave it to you to research that, Chris, and look forward to your post.