Last year FreshHell sent me one of the books left in her rented beach house and I found it hilariously bad, so this year she rented a different, more upscale house and sent me one of the books she found there, William Bernhardt's Capitol Murder. Although it's better written--no, probably because it's better written--it's an even more repellent book, one that I'd certainly try to leave wherever I discovered it.
The action begins with a video of a young girl having sex with a U.S. Senator, a video which includes gagging and retching noises and is eventually shown in court during the Senator's trial for murdering the girl. And the description gets much worse from there.
An investigator for the senator's defense explores various S&M sex clubs, complete with details on what he sees, and progresses to the inner "temple" of a vampire cult who "call upon the Undead Gods, the ancient Sumerian vampire dragon goddess, Tiamat, and the way of the Magick" before they use their specially sharpened teeth to bite each other's shoulders and drink blood.
The leader of the "vampires" is a murderer who enjoys torture. There's a graphic description of how he forces an underling to torture the investigator, complete with scintillating lines like "hurt him again." But the exposure of the vamp leader is merely a red herring. The girl's murderer is someone else, someone you don't really know enough about to suspect.
Why fiction of this kind is written, I don't know. But I think it's now established that you should never read a paperback novel you find abandoned in a rental beach house. It's like necromancy...it never pays.
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16 comments:
Sounds...awful. I think you can keep that one.
So true! We vacationed in Colorado this August and our house only had nature book and Nicholas Sparks novels! Ahhh! Luckily I brought my own reading material that trip. :-)
Ick. It sounds almost like a parody of a bad book.
I think I might actually have read that one too but managed to forget all about it until now.
See, that book makes even the Wasp Factory look good :P
Perhaps we should start a movement to leave good books in beach houses.
I actually liked the start to this series by Bernhardt...I see I still have Capitol Murder on my shelves untouched. It is that Ben guy right?
Ick.
And here is a movement to leave better reading material in vacation houses: https://readersguide.wordpress.com/vacation-house-book-challenge/
Lass, are you sure? There's a scene in "the necrophilia room"!
Betty, it's wise to never depend upon the kindness of strangers...for reading material while on vacation.
Harriet, it's evidently the 14th in a series about an Oklahoma lawyer, here the defense lawyer.
Elizabeth, hadn't thought of that, but yeah, I'm just not in the intended audience for some of this cruelty fiction!
PAJ, that would be something you'd do, you anti-hoarder. Remember the time Miriam tried to throw away an Ayn Rand book and where that book is today?!
Amy, yes, the defense lawyer is Ben Kincaid. When I looked up the series, I read that this is the only one not set in Oklahoma.
ReadersGuide, I like your movement. Also, isn't there some kind of program where people leave books and tell others where they've left them?
Jeanne, books are like kittens and puppies. There are never enough good homes for all of them.
Oh yes, there is! It's a website, and you note where you've left what, and whoever picks it up notes hat, too, or something.
Hee! Wow. So glad I hit the jackpot again! I think we'll be staying at the same place next year. I will peruse the shelves with you in mind. Why mess with a good system? :)
PAJ, I like your analogy, since our house is also home to too many former kittens!
Readersguide, that sounds right. I've forgotten the name of the website, though.
FreshHell, this is going to be like Jingles, is it?!! You are taking advantage of me; you know I'm going to have to read anything someone takes the trouble to pick out and send!
You are right to be wary of books left in holiday places. Think I have left some quite nice piece of chicklit behind, but mostly it's books I couldn't stand and didn't want to cart home. I should be more repsonsible.
Jodie, the nicest books I leave in vacation rentals are guidebooks for the area. Because by the time I come back, they'll be outdated, so someone else might as well use them.
Whereas books found in flats rented in London have proved to be very good successes for me. Just one among many arguments for vacationing in London, not the beach. :p (No, I love the beach really.)
Jenny, we're contemplating the lake country rather than the beach for next summer, and I'll be sure to check out the books if we spend a night in London!
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