Sat 12 Dec 2009
Archived Review: DAVID OSBORN – Murder on the Chesapeake.
Posted by Steve under Bibliographies, Lists & Checklists , Characters , Reviews[3] Comments
DAVID OSBORN – Murder on the Chesapeake. Simon & Schuster, hardcover, 1992; Paperback reprint: Zebra; 1st printing, May 1993.
I don’t much care for prologues, as some of you may recall, and after reading the one in this book, it was very nearly all I read. Kids get murdered often enough in real life that they don’t have to get murdered in mystery stories too — if that’s all it is, a mystery story.
Or to be more specific: A young teen-aged girl is murdered in the prologue of this book, strangled and thrown off a balcony with a rope around her neck. And in some detail.
She’s a student in one of those exclusive preppy girls’ schools whose inhabitants love to torment the weaker of the species, and that’s the kind of life Mary Hughes led. Poor but intelligent and talented. No wonder she never fit in.
After an investment of $3.99 into the paperback edition, it’s tough to give upon a book after only 14 pages, and so, no, I didn’t quit.
As a writer, though, David Osborn bites off a bit more than he should have, I think. Telling the story is his leading character, Margaret Barlow, a sporty 55, a grandmother of a teenager, and a hot air balloonist, among other things that fall into the category of larger than life.” Her granddaughter, who calls her Margaret, is also a student at Brides Hall.
Nothing much else happens until page 164, on which a second murder is discovered. It’s a messy one — the victim is found sliced in half by an elevator, “dragging out her intestines and eviscerating her but unable to pull all of her down… ”
Come on. Who needs this? The rest of the detective story is weak, but I found this scene — let me speak plainly here — absolutely useless. Tasteless and trite — it’s a tough combination.
Bibliographic Data: While David Osborn wrote a number of other books which are included in the Revised Crime Fiction IV, by Allen J. Hubin, including Open Season (1974), which was made into a film starring Peter Fonda, John Phillip Law and Richard Lynch, Margaret Barlow was his only series character.
The Margaret Barlow series:
Murder on Martha’s Vineyard (n.) Lynx, hc, 1989.
Murder on the Chesapeake (n.) Simon, hc, 1992.
Murder in the Napa Valley (n.) Simon, hc, 1993.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:13 pm
I just can’t get into the kids in danger sub-genre, and it puzzles me that so many fans that do are women who have children. Frankly very few writers handle children well or create believable ones, and there is always a touch of exploitation to all but the very best of this kind of thing.
That said I can think of writers who handled the thing well — Conan Doyle, Rex Stout, Philip MacDonald, Margery Allingham, Whit Masterson, Woolrich’s classic short, even Mickey Spillane, and others, but in general I agree that too often it’s just a reminder of all too real horrors and that’s one of the things I generally read to escape.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
There are always exceptions to any rule of reading fiction that I create for myself, and in terms of children in mysteries, David, you’ve come up with some good ones, but in the case of MURDER ON THE CHESAPEAKE, no, definitely not.
I didn’t say this in the review, but — the heads of the Royal Reviewing Society aren’t reading this, are they? — although I skimmed through the rest very quickly, in every sense that matters, I quit reading this book on page 164.
This may be the only book that I’ve ever written a review for that I didn’t finish.
December 13th, 2009 at 12:25 am
I can generally finish any book, but the ones that I can’t have to be exceptionally bad. Sounds as if this one fits that bill.
I have one hard and fast rule I never bend — entertain and or inform me. If they fail in that …
But to be honest a friend of mine and I seek out bad books sometimes. They can be great fun and sometimes not a bad writing lesson. But they have to be bad in a fun way — not just inept or boring.