Dead Famous (novel) Dead Famous (novel) Dead Famous (2001) is a comedy/whodunit novel by Ben Elton in which ratings for a reality TV show, very similar to "Big Brother", rocket when a housemate is murdered. Unlike a typical whodunnit, Elton does not reveal the identity of the victim until around halfway into the book. The novel is about a murder that occurs on a reality television programme called "House Arrest", which is very similar to the program Big Brother, and the efforts of three police officers to identify the killer by watching all the video recordings of the ten housemates while the remaining
Dead Famous (novel) head. Later, a note is found in an envelope that had been sealed weeks previously that says that the victim will be dead by the time the housemates read the note and that one of the three remaining housemates will be murdered. The police have to catch the killer before he or she strikes again. The killer is revealed on the final night of the show to be the show's producer, who had set up the murder to attract increased ratings for the show, faking the video footage of the killer leaving the sweat-box with the aid of her deputy