We must first determine the principal murderee, if you will permit me to use that expression."

Since they had been trained in exactly this sort of thing, pursuit and murder, it was not reasonable to suppose the murderee had turned the tables.

It is more likely that the killer committed the first murder to confuse us, and that the principal murderee was Armadale or Arthur."

Or, as the Journal would prefer to phrase it less elegantly, is anything to be gained by finding out who committed a murder when the murderee is already dead?

In the make-believe of London Fields, his narrator joked about the luck of being presented with a murder story, of already knowing the 'murderer, and the murderee'.

Since our century has introduced nuclear weapons and the poisoning of the planet - "the two possible means of self-destruction - I thought, 'Is the planet the murderee?' "

The other main characters are Guy Clinch, the foil; Keith Talent, the cheat; and Nicola Six, the murderee, who knows she will be murdered a few minutes after midnight on 5 November 1999-her 35th birthday-and who goes in search of her killer.

Hero and naughty boy, stoic and voluptuary, scientist and prince of the church, near saint and predestined murderee - all have their place in what is what one of the grandest and most various panoramas that have come down to us in European art.

Nicola is a self-styled "murderee", who manipulates the entire cast of characters to bring about her own murder so that she will not have to face ageing, a natural process that she hates as she fears the loss of her attractiveness and power to manipulate men, as well as the indignities of decay and old age.