Bonegrinder
By John Lutz
1980 Berkley
Paperback, 232 pages
No, perv, this isn’t a porno, it
is an early novel from John Lutz, who went on to be a very successful mystery
writer, author of Single White Female and an Edgar Award winner. Like so
many animal-attack books, it came in the wake of Jaws, and it certainly
wears it’s influence on its sleeve.
There seems to be a monster in
the lake in a small resort town in the Ozarks. There have been a few gory
deaths and sketchy descriptions and that is enough to cause a lot of excitement
in this remote setting. Tourists, news people and gawkers crash the scene,
hoping to get a glimpse of the newly coined “Bonegrinder” or, better yet, one
of the monster’s bloody victims. That’s more than Sherriff Wintone can take,
and he struggles to maintain the peace and his own life in the midst of this
Crypto-Craze.
I don’t know. I guess this was a
pretty good book; certainly, it is well-written, but most of the characters are
somewhat annoying. The sheriff is pretty much likeable, though he’s written
with such a laid-back delivery and colloquialisms that I struggled a few times.
Of course, he is the Sherriff Brody of the story, but I kept picturing him as
Richard Farnsworth in Misery (1990) due to the writing of the character.
Of course, Farnsworth was far older than Wintone was supposed to be, so it made
the love interest scenes a bit jarring. And, like the sheriff, I wanted to
smack the town drunk in the face.
All in all, the book felt a
little overlong for me and the holding off (and holding off and holding off) on
the reveal of the monster made me impatient. I can see how Lutz became adept at
mysteries. I figured out one side-plot quickly, so I was pleased with myself. It’s
not a bad book and I don’t regret the time I spent with it, but it didn’t
completely satisfy me.
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