Skeletons

by Glendon Swarthout

Skeletons is bestselling author Glendon Swarthout's one and only mystery/thriller. It took him 8 years to work out this complicated, multi-time level, historically-backdropped plot, and he said it was so mentally exhausting, he'd never attempt another mystery. But Skeletons turned out very well with tremendous reviews and was optioned in the 90's for a feature film for famous horror filmmaker Wes Craven (Nightmare On Elm Street), who let the option pass due to Universal's reluctance to finance Wes for bigger-budget horror films, until Scary Movie took off for him later.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 revolves which she carries about with her like a doll. Tyler is also brilliant in bed and after a showdown between the sheets in New York, 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.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 an engaging and unlikely a private eye as ever stalked his prey in Gucci loafers.Reviews --"More surprises, more fun, more chilly 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"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 a thrilling Old West-style shootout staged nearly sixty years earlier 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 multi-layered, like an onion, and the reader is held as Swarthout peels off layer after fascinating layer...In the process he 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"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"Steamy stuff, delivered in terse, unblocked prose, areated with humour. " the Sunday Times of London"How this mystery ends will astound and chill many. How the novel ends will charm your spurs off. With humor, brisk pacing and an admirable economy of words, Swarthout engages the reader at every turn. As he has done before, most notably in The Shootist, Swarthout shows the cracks in the legends of how our West was really won." William Harry Harding, the Los Angeles Times

Genres: Crime, Mystery

280 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1979

About the author

Glendon Fred Swarthout was an American writer. Some of his best known novels were made into films of the same title, Where the Boys Are, The Shootist and They Came To Cordura.

Also wrote under Glendon Fred Swarthout. Twice nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glendon_...

Reviews

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

Swarthout serves up a comedic mystery thriller here that probably had more punch when it first came out (1979) than today, but the nostalgia factor add a little to offset the dated feel. You enjoyment of this will probably hinge upon your feelings toward the main protagonist, Jimmy Butters. Jimmy successfully writes books for kids and lives in NYC. The extensive depiction of his duds is pretty amusing, as he dresses like a pimp straight out of a blaxploitation film.

Jimmy briefly married one Tyler Vaught, a NYC socialite, but she left him after three months for another author. Skeletons starts off with Tyler calling Jimmy up, begging him to meet her at JFK where the remains of her lover are arriving for burial. What happened? Apparently, Tyler, who was born and kinda raised in Harding New Mexico, set her (now) dead lover there to investigate some old trials that took place and involved her grandparents on both sides. After some intensive scrogging, Jimmy acquiesces to Tyler to go himself to Harding to scope out the trials ("do you still love me Jimmy? Please..."). So Jimmy takes his 1958 Rolls to New Mexico to see what he can find out...

Skeletons is an apt name for this, for that is what Jimmy is tasked to do-- dig up the skeletons in Harding. Tyler's dead lover thought it would make a great novel, but for Jimmy, he is doing it hoping to win back Tyler. The more Jimmy digs, it becomes apparent that the locals indeed have some deep secrets and really, really want the skeletons to stay buried...

Jimmy is an unlikely hero, vain, childish and cowardly. If you dig the comedic aspect, this may really work for you. Me, I had a hard time with Jimmy and after a while, just wanted the book to be over to get the big reveal. YMMV! 2.5 skeletal stars!!

[Miles Swarthout · Rating 5 out of 5]

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 about with her like a doll. Tyler is also brilliant in bed and after a showdown between the sheets in New York, she sweettalks 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/thriller, which, like his Western, The Shootist, is destined to become a classic of the crime 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 the 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 young adult novella with his wife, Kathryn, Cadbury's Coffin, which received a nomination for Best Juvenile Mystery in 1982 from the Mystery Writers of America. Skeletons took him 8 years to research its historical background and break its complex plot, something he swore off ever doing again in a mystery after he finally finished its laborious writing. But try it to see what unusual can happen when a master craftsman ventures off his regular literary track into a very different genre.

More information about the writing Swarthouts and descriptions of all their adult novels and YA novellas, plus movie trailers of the 9 films made from their stories and screenplays (original and adaptations), are posted on their literary website -- www.glendonswarthout.com

Book Reviews --

"More surprises, more fun, more chilly 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

"With Skeletons, Glendon Swarthout has written not so much a whodunit as a whodunwhat? There are plots and subplots, murders, international crime rings, old family feuds, even a reconstruction of a thrilling Old West style shootout staged nearly sixty years earlier in a Ford agency showroom. Swarthout is a superb mystery writer, filling his 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 a 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

"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

"Fast-paced...intriguing...a thoroughly entertaining, can't-put-it-down novel....This is the book you've been waiting for!"
Gerry Barker Fort Worth, Texas Star Telegraph

"...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

"Skeletons might be called a thriller but it is very much more. It doesn't fit the thriller formula any more than its narrator fits the part of hero. He does, though, fit the part of a decent man in a way that's unusual in present-day tough fiction...In spite of the horrors, very graphically described, it's a book of great sweetness. The good in it convince us of their goodness, which is rare. And of their niceness, which is perhaps rarer. It is precise and witty and ironic and enormously likeable."
Isabel Quigly, the London Financial Times

"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 mystery 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 is all done make it come fully alive and absolutely unputdownable."
John Welcome, the Dublin Irish Times

[Leslie Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

takes place in New Mexico--some past, some present. I really like the way he writes; he's a hoot.

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read thirty pages and did not like it. I either love his book or don't finish them.

[Checkman · Rating 2 out of 5]

Glendon Swarthout's only mystery. Set in New Mexico in 1977 with extensive flashbacks set in 1910 and 1916. A mystery with a rather heavy-handed morality message concerning the sins of the fathers and violence begetting violence. The protagonist (Jimmy Butters) is a New York based author of popular children's books and a sartorial stylists; he is also a self-admitted coward and pacifist. He is asked by his ex-wife to go to her hometown of Hardin, New Mexico to look into the death of another writer; whom she had asked to research the murder trial of her grandfather (1910), and the disappearance of four Mexican nationals after they were acquitted of murder (1916). Coincidentally those four men were defended by her grandfather who also vanished about the same time.

What follows is really nothing new in terms of mysteries. I figured out within a fairly short while that there would be all types of "skeletons" uncovered as well as the mandatory treks by our improperly dressed protagonist through the desert, old graves dug up (again both literally and figuratively) and violent encounters with shadowy characters in the night. Naturally there is a corrupt lawman, judge, banker and so on. Though the publisher (I read a first edition) trumpets that Mr. Swarthout has written an extraordinary and unusual novel the fact is that it's territory well trod by Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler and Ross McDonald to name but a few. I would argue that it was even covered by older writers such as Nathaniel Hawthorne (see "The House of the Seven Gables"), but despite that it's not a bad mystery. I kept turning the pages. The plot in ,and of itself, did not earn my two star rating. See below for why I only give it two stars.

In many respects Skeletons is a look at how people romanticize the past when it was anything but. There is also the before mentioned "sins of the fathers" and "Violence begetting violence". Not surprisingly Jimmy Butters is hardly the stuff that steely eyed cowboy heroes are made of and it's rather belabored by Mr. Swarthout. Truthfully I found the character to a bit too much the other extreme (rather screechy and engaging in such antics as biting his knuckles when confronting something that scares him) and also something of a sexual harasser of women - which is played for laughs. Incidentally the novel is set in the Southwestern United States and there are numerous references to Mexicans as "wets", "beaners" and Mexican restaurants as "Mexican beaneries". Despite my best efforts to have a sense of relatively when it comes to older novels I found such casual racism (understanding that times have changed) to be very distracting. To the point that it took away from the reading experience. What can I say. It's 2019 and I live and work in a city which is approximately 45% Hispanic. I found it hard to ignore and it hurt the book.

I am definitely not a "Social Justice Warrior" (SJW). I am not hyper-sensitive and I don't take offense at the smallest/unintentional "micro-aggressions". However I found Skeletons to be just a bit too much when it comes to such things. As I wrote earlier it was distracting and took me out of the novel. It can be argued that the time and place when the novel was written should be taken into account (I've made that argument myself in the past), but this time I can't run with it.

Not a terrible book and would probably make a fair movie if the writer doing the adaptation made some judicious edits. However I really can't recommend it. A book that has aged rather badly.

[Electra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Trop ravie d’avoir réussi à reprendre un livre et du coup je l’ai lu en une matinée. Mon troisième ou quatrième Swarthout. J’espère que ça continuer !

[Charlotte · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai beaucoup aimé ce livre, l'incipit était incroyable et l'histoire et merveilleuse.

[Geneviève Bossé · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Je suis un être humain honnête et j'ai le droit de vivre dans un monde honnête, or le tien ne l'est pas."