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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent suspense novel!,
By
This review is from: Skeletons (Hardcover)
A hidden gem! A children's book writer gets caught up with modern day killers and a murder mystery from 1916 down at the US/Mexico border. Great read!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An unusual, humorous mystery/thriller by a master storyteller!,
By
This review is from: Skeletons (Paperback)
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 revolver which she carries around with her like a doll. Tyler is also brilliant in bed and after a showdown between the sheets in New York City, 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. So begins Glendon Swarthout's first mystery/thiller, which like his Western, The Shootist, is destined to become a classic of the genre. 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 as engaging and unlikely a private eye as ever stalked his prey in Gucci loafers. How Jimmie Butters copes with these skeletons and where precisely they are buried is unfolded with quiet but dazzling cunning by a master storyteller, and whoever embarks on the search for these grim bones will not be able to stop until they have been rattled for the last time. Skeletons is the only mystery Glendon Swarthout ever wrote, with the exception of a juvenile novella with his wife, Kathryn. Cadbury's Coffin received a nomination in its juvenile category for Best Juvenile Mystery of 1982 from the Mystery Writers of America. Try Skeletons and see what unusual can happen when a master craftsman ventures off his regular literary track into a very different genre. Reviews -- "More surprises, more fun, more 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 ""Steamy stuff, delivered in terse, unblocked prose, aerated with humour." the Sunday Times of London "The plot is multi-layered, like an onion, and the reader is held as Swarthout peels off layer after fascinating layer...In the process Swarthout 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 ""Glendon Swarthout has a ball that turns into a rollicking good time for the reader...A wonderful Swarthout tale! To reveal any more would ruin a page-turner of unusual gentleness and high spirits." Robert Armstrong, Minneapolis Tribune "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 thrilling Old West style shootout staged nearly sixty years ago 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 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 "...It's his first crime story and laced with so much captivating mystery, vivid description and colourful, credible characters that it deserves to become a classic of its kind...The author scatters clues here and there and the main one confronts the reader on first picking up the book. But few folks are likely to guess the outcome of a yarn that shines like a beacon in today's sea of fiction." Bolton, Lancashire Evening News, Great Britain "Mr. Swarthout has a highly idiosyncratic style and deploys it to advantage in this unusual story...Past and present are skillfully blended; there is a nice thread of humour; there are mysteries and violence. Very well done and to be recommended." Sydney, Australia Morning Herald "The author of The Shootist together with many other bestsellers has turned his practiced hand to a crime novel and it's a tour de force -- witty, wicked, original and an enthralling read...It's ultra complicated and pretty impossible really but the panache and skill with which it's all done make it come fully alive and absolutely unputdownable." John Welcome, the Dublin Irish Times
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