This was a cheat read randomly chosen from my TBR shelves mainly for the thickness of the book and the rather interesting cover.
I think I found it in the charity section at the front of my local Tesco a couple of years back. After reading it, it's going straight back there.
Douglas Warner died in 1967 apparently. This copy must have been printed in the early seventies since the price on the back cover is in decimal currency (25p in case you're interested).
He's a bit of a forgotten author and wrote 4 books whose titles started Death On A ___. It's fair to say I will not be seeking out any of his other books. This one was more than enough.
This is a clear contender for worst book of the year so far. Maybe the past several years. I would rather read the Louise Penny/Hilary Clinton book again than this one.
It's a shame because the opening couple of pages of this are very good. The opening sentence is a corker "Robert Colston died three times, though only the last one was for keeps"
It goes downhill rapidly from thereon in.
The story follows a newspaper editor - Ian Curtis - who witnesses the final death of Robert Colson, shot dead in front of the newspaper offices where he (Ian) works whist attempting to deliver an urgent message.
Curtis decides to investigate and uncovers a terrible conspiracy.
When I say a terrible conspiracy, I don't just mean that in the world these characters inhabit, the consequences could be dire, I mean the conspiracy is badly thought out, implausible and totally stupid.
It all links to five years previously when Robert had predicted an earthquake that was going to strike the town of Arminster before it happened. Of course, he wasn't believed and 95,000 people apparently died in the tragedy.
This is where things start to get really silly. We find out the details of the earthquake in chapters 3 through 8, a good third of the book. This is supposed to be in the form of an article about the earthquake commissioned by Curtis from his star reporter called Holt. These chapters are supposed to be the article Holt wrote. Characters refer to phrases used in this segment later on. Therefore, you would expect it to be written as per a newspaper article.
However, it's written in close third person, swapping between about 7 characters (including Colston even though there's no way Holt could have talked to him). The language used is unlike any ever in any newspaper ever published. It's 40 pages long - and it's the worst depiction of an earthquake ever set to paper.
The first one bunch of characters know about it is when the chandelier in their ballroom starts swinging like a pendulum. Take note that this is apparently a force 8.7 quake, but the characters haven't felt the earth move at this point. The fact that an earthquake of this magnitude is so localised as well seems rather implausible.
We also hear about one pair of young newlyweds and their sexual misadventures just before the quake hits (she is refusing his advances because she's never done it before, just before the room collapses on them killing her), because obviously this would be included in an article written for publication in an evening paper, and something that the surviving member of the couple would tell the journalist in the first place.
Colston is living in this town even though he knows what's happening. he knew ten hours before the quake the time it would happen and the epicentre. However, when his warnings fell on deaf ears, he went back to his boarding house and didn't clear off out of the town. Therefore, he's caught in the quake, loses his memory because of a blow to the head, and regains his memory 5 years later when he's assaulted and hit on the head a second time.
The reason Colston knew the earthquake was going to happen? It had been hot weather for five weeks and there was a warm wind from the south... That explains the title at least. Even for the time it was written the science is hokey and unbelievably badly thought out.
The political intrigue he tries to instill into the plot is a damp squib. A couple of shouting matches between two equally tedious characters.
If this hadn't been only 133 pages, I might have given up on it. The contents of the message that Colston was trying to give to Curtis is so obvious, and such a coincidence that he got his memory back just in time before the events of the last section of the book.
All this is told in a deathless prose that barely held my interest and it was a struggle to carry on with it. This isn't a so bad it's good book. It's just bad. It's close to unreadable. It's a couple of hours of my life that I wish I could have back.
I read this so you don't have to.
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