I read this for D-6: Outside Your Comfort Zone
The Sailcloth Shroud - Charles Williams
Charles Williams (1909 - 1975) is known for writing taut
suspense stories, a few such as Dead
Calm and Aground with a nautical
theme. On the water is out of my comfort zone. Though I grew up in a Great
Lakes state, I’m no sailor. So, I read passages like, “There’s a formula for
calculating the absolute maximum speed of a displacement hull, regardless of
the type or amount of power applied. It’s a function of the trochoidal wave
system set up by the boat and is 1.34 times the square root of the waterline length.”
And I think, “Okay, I’ll trust you on that.”
But like Patrick O’Brian in the Aubrey-Maturin stories,
Williams makes the techno-babble go down easy with his concise, readable style
and imaginative story-telling. From Texas, he can make his tall tales stay on
the plausible side of incredible. In this one, a sailboat captain hires two
strangers in Panama to help him pilot a 40-foot ketch back to the US where he
can sell it. One of the men dies of a heart attack and must be buried at sea.
And just a few days after they land in Texas, the other hire is beaten to
death.
Suddenly the captain is subject to unwelcome attention by
the cops and FBI and to brutal questioning by hardened criminals. Three
flashbacks provide narrative interest. Williams fires off jokes just when the gettin’
can’t get much worse for our hero. He has an excellent touch with down-home
metaphors and similes. Like this when our hero manages to run away after
“enhanced interrogation techniques”: “My torso felt as if had been emptied and
then stuffed with broken glass or eggshells. Every breath was agony, and I ran
awkwardly, with a feeling that I had been cut in two and the upper half of my
body was merely riding, none too well balanced, on the lower.”
Fine as cream gravy, now that’s talkin’ Texan. I can’t
say this one reaches the outstanding standard set by the hard as nails A Touch of Death, because it lacks
a femme fatale on the devilish level of Madelon. Also, the vision of the Spanish moss settings
of the Deep South are suggestive but not quite as evocative in this outing. But
anybody who likes a rockin’ crime novel or stories of average guys suddenly
thrust into hellish circumstances will enjoy this one.
I saw this one at our Friends of the Library bookstore a while back...but reading the synopsis, I thought it was out of my comfort zone and gave it a pass. I think that was probably best for me.
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