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Friday, July 6, 2018

FFB: Death Wishes - Philip Loraine

Unpleasant people. Unpleasant situations. You can’t escape them if you’re going to read crime fiction. I’m always amazed when I read a review of a crime novel that states the reviewer did not like the book because the characters were unlikeable, unpleasant, untrustworthy, and in general just UN-anything. Why bother reading crime fiction then? Nice people don’t steal, swindle, beat up, torture or kill other people. There are nothing but unpleasant people in Death Wishes (1983) one of Philip Loraine’s last books published in his lifetime. But just because these people are not nice doesn’t make them not worth your attention. This is one crafty bunch of characters and their two-timing and lying make for some fascinating reading.

Basically what we have here is another story about a group of avaricious relatives fighting for the estate of a wealthy patriarch who had little love for anyone other than himself. Edward Walden has one daughter, an alcoholic ex-wife now dead, and a couple of illegitimate children who will crop up during this twisty story of deceit and betrayal. His mistresses and their offspring as well as his servants are expecting to be the primary legatees when the will is read. Imagine their surprise when they hear that the entire estate is left to Catherine, his estranged daughter who has been living in the United States for over twenty years. The household is in a mild uproar and those who were apparently disinherited insist that there was a new will that cut out Catherine and left them the estate to divide into five equal shares.

Catherine who has traveled southern France to the Walden estate (but conveniently skipped out on Daddy’s funeral) finds herself the target of a couple of dangerous young men, their scheming mothers, and a wily butler out for himself. Who will find the correct will? And will Catherine survive the weekend before it turns up? I’ll say no more. Loraine has constructed a neatly plotted story, deceptively simple on the surface but teeming with background intrigues only hinted at in the first few chapters. But in the masterful, exciting finale those intrigues take center stage. All hell breaks loose with a furor of tempers flying, accusations of attempted murder, and a flurry of bizarre revelations and ugly truths finally exposed.

Short and sweet this week, eh? The only thing I’ll add in closing is that in this fourth to last novel of Loraine’s not only are the characters more base but so is his writing. Casual swearing crops up frequently as well as casual sex. Loraine decided to go whole hog with the unpleasantness. Those easily offended by F bombs in language and in the bedroom ought to look elsewhere for their entertainment. For me, Death Wishes hit the right notes of venal and criminal behavior on the printed page. Guess I was sick of niceness this past week.

4 comments:

  1. Niceness can be dull as a Republican incumbent's speech when it's not juxtaposed with irony and evil, which fortunately in a well-written novel can be felt as delicious foreshadowing in the incumbent's speech of his ultimate undoing. In short, Death Wishes sounds to have the sort of ingredients to make me identify the characters with real people I know and for whom I would not sob uncontrollably were they to get what is coming to them.

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    1. These people get what they deserve and then some. There is an ironic situation in the resolution in which two characters who pulled off a con on the rest of the legatees get away with their crime. Also, a nifty coda in the final paragraphs hinting that Catherine will have the last laugh on everyone.

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  2. Not to mention that a good laugh will often get you through the nastiness. But serious heavy breathing unpleasantness...I don't know, John, hard to fathom at this stage in the game. I'm just too old for REAL unpleasantness. And yes, of course, you have a point - nice people don't murder. Oh wait, didn't Christie disprove that? Ha.

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    1. I go through fits of needing to sample books that remind me what crime is all about -- selfishness, ruthlessness, senselessness. Crimes committed by loathsome people driven to extremes, deviation from civility and morality, the descent of humans to their basest selves -- it's all too fascinating. Then again I'll probably be writing about some thoroughly unreal, fantastical puzzle mystery populated by colorful characters easy to like and enjoy and end up raving about it all next week. From one extreme to the other, a continual see-sawing of my wide tastes in books, dependent mostly on my mercurial moods.

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