Understudy for Death
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3.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
Charles Willeford's legendary lost novel, unavailable since its original publication in 1961.
AN UNFORGIVABLE CRIME.
AN UNFORGETTABLE NOVEL.
Why would a happily married Florida housewife pick up her husband's .22 caliber Colt Woodsman semi-automatic pistol and use it to kill her two young children and herself? Cynical newspaper reporter Richard Hudson is assigned to find out - and the assignment will send him down a road of self-discovery in this incisive, no-holds-barred portrait of American marriage in the Mad Men era.
On the 30th anniversary of the death of the masterful novelist the Atlantic Monthly called the "father of Miami crime fiction," Hard Case Crime is proud to present Charles Willeford's legendary lost novel, unavailable since its original publication by a disreputable paperback house in 1961. One of Willeford's rarest titles (copies of the original edition sell for hundreds of dollars), Understudy for Death still has the power to disturb, half a century after its debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
First released in 1961 under the title Understudy for Love, this reissue from Willeford (1919 1988) commemorates the 30th anniversary of the quirky author's death. Like most of his paperback originals during this period, it features a male animal on the prowl: one Richard Hudson, a newspaperman in a small Florida city who finds his routine disrupted when a housewife murders her two children and then commits suicide. Assigned to ferret out reasons for the baffling crime, Hudson tracks down her friends, husband, priest, and creative writing teacher, even as he begins to question his own existence. Given the demands of the sleaze market of the day, Hudson naturally falls into bed with his sexy wife every few chapters and has a torrid affair on the side. Willeford fans will find many traces of his usual themes and humor, but this so-called lost novel oddly lacks the violence and psychotic characters that are the trademarks of his best work, such as Miami Blues and The Burnt Orange Heresy.
