Skeletons is bestselling author Glendon Swarthout's one and only mystery/thriller. It took him 8 years to work out this complicated, multi-time level, historically-backdropped plot, and he said it was so mentally exhausting, he'd never attempt another mystery. But Skeletons turned out very well with tremendous reviews and was optioned in the 90's for a feature film for famous horror filmmaker Wes Craven (Nightmare On Elm Street), who let the option pass due to Universal's reluctance to finance Wes for bigger-budget horror films, until Scary Movie took off for him later.
The skeleton in Jimmie Butters' closet is his ex-wife, Tyler. She is beautiful and obsessed, and enjoys painting coins and men's personals with red nail enamel. Her skeletons are two long-dead grandfathers and an old Colt revolves which she carries about with her like a doll. Tyler is also brilliant in bed and after a showdown between the sheets in New York, she sweet talks Jimmie into galloping to New Mexico in his classic Rolls-Royce to track down some crimes, dig up some graves, and sample the regional cuisine.
In its remorsely skillful blending of the sinister present and the far-from-golden past, an onion-like puzzle is peeled away. Old-timers give way to bullets. Innocent men are made to run a Texas horserace -- in lawless New Mexico. There is rape. There is mayhem. There is love. Above all, there is one B. James Butters, author of children's books, who hates evil, fears violence, and is an engaging and unlikely a private eye as ever stalked his prey in Gucci loafers.
Reviews --
"More surprises, more fun, more chilly thrills than 10 average mysteries." Eugenia Thornton, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A master storyteller...his talents have never been sharper as he reveals mysteries within mysteries....witty, tantalizing and pervaded with a tingling sense of foreboding and danger." Houston Chronicle
"Witty, complex and highly entertaining, Swarthout's whodunit has all the ingredients of a good mystery." Publisher's Weekly
"With Skeletons, Glendon Swarthout has written not so much a whodunit as a whodunwhat? There are plots and subplots, murders, international criminal rings, old family feuds, even a reconstruction of a thrilling Old West-style shootout staged nearly sixty years earlier in a Ford agency showroom. Swarthout is a superb mystery writer, filling the pages with surprise upon surprise, weaving a tale of suspense that mounts with every page....Skeletons is the stuff of which movies are made." Constance Daniell, Milwaukee Journal
"The plot is multi-layered, like an onion, and the reader is held as Swarthout peels off layer after fascinating layer...In the process he takes the reader on a memorable fictional journey that moves effortlessly back and forth in time and when it is finished neatly ties up all the strings in a most satisfactory manner." Phil Thomas, Associated Press Books Editor
"The plot is full of twists, turns, leaps and surprises; the writing style is crisp and humorous. And if you haven't guessed by now, the skeletons in Harding's closets turn out to be more than figurative. With all neatly tied-up by the last page, one comes away feeling as though having just returned from a dusty, scary,and thoroughly enjoyable trail ride...Glendon Swarthout is a storyteller's storyteller. And his latest novel, Skeletons, is fine summer fodder." Baltimore Sun
"Steamy stuff, delivered in terse, unblocked prose, areated with humour. " the Sunday Times of London
"How this mystery ends will astound and chill many. How the novel ends will charm your spurs off. With humor, brisk pacing and an admirable economy of words, Swarthout engages the reader at every turn. As he has done before, most notably in The Shootist, Swarthout shows the cracks in the legends of how our West was really won." William Harry Harding, the Los Angeles Times
--This text refers to the
Kindle Edition
edition.
The skeleton in Jimmie Butters' closet is his ex-wife, Tyler. She is beautiful and obsessed, and enjoys painting coins and men's personals with red nail enamel. Her skeletons are two long-dead grandfathers and an old Colt revolves which she carries about with her like a doll. Tyler is also brilliant in bed and after a showdown between the sheets in New York, she sweet talks Jimmie into galloping to New Mexico in his classic Rolls-Royce to track down some crimes, dig up some graves, and sample the regional cuisine.
In its remorsely skillful blending of the sinister present and the far-from-golden past, an onion-like puzzle is peeled away. Old-timers give way to bullets. Innocent men are made to run a Texas horserace -- in lawless New Mexico. There is rape. There is mayhem. There is love. Above all, there is one B. James Butters, author of children's books, who hates evil, fears violence, and is an engaging and unlikely a private eye as ever stalked his prey in Gucci loafers.
Reviews --
"More surprises, more fun, more chilly thrills than 10 average mysteries." Eugenia Thornton, Cleveland Plain Dealer
"A master storyteller...his talents have never been sharper as he reveals mysteries within mysteries....witty, tantalizing and pervaded with a tingling sense of foreboding and danger." Houston Chronicle
"Witty, complex and highly entertaining, Swarthout's whodunit has all the ingredients of a good mystery." Publisher's Weekly
"With Skeletons, Glendon Swarthout has written not so much a whodunit as a whodunwhat? There are plots and subplots, murders, international criminal rings, old family feuds, even a reconstruction of a thrilling Old West-style shootout staged nearly sixty years earlier in a Ford agency showroom. Swarthout is a superb mystery writer, filling the pages with surprise upon surprise, weaving a tale of suspense that mounts with every page....Skeletons is the stuff of which movies are made." Constance Daniell, Milwaukee Journal
"The plot is multi-layered, like an onion, and the reader is held as Swarthout peels off layer after fascinating layer...In the process he takes the reader on a memorable fictional journey that moves effortlessly back and forth in time and when it is finished neatly ties up all the strings in a most satisfactory manner." Phil Thomas, Associated Press Books Editor
"The plot is full of twists, turns, leaps and surprises; the writing style is crisp and humorous. And if you haven't guessed by now, the skeletons in Harding's closets turn out to be more than figurative. With all neatly tied-up by the last page, one comes away feeling as though having just returned from a dusty, scary,and thoroughly enjoyable trail ride...Glendon Swarthout is a storyteller's storyteller. And his latest novel, Skeletons, is fine summer fodder." Baltimore Sun
"Steamy stuff, delivered in terse, unblocked prose, areated with humour. " the Sunday Times of London
"How this mystery ends will astound and chill many. How the novel ends will charm your spurs off. With humor, brisk pacing and an admirable economy of words, Swarthout engages the reader at every turn. As he has done before, most notably in The Shootist, Swarthout shows the cracks in the legends of how our West was really won." William Harry Harding, the Los Angeles Times
