In what is necessarily a record, I have already read the worst book I will read in 2015. Not only that, I finished it a week ago. On January 1, I started the worst book I will read all year. No doubt about it. There is no possible way I will read a worse book this year. It was bad. Unbelievably bad. As in, how-does-something-like-this-get-published bad? And moreover, how in the world does someone who writes this book get a contract to write at least five more books after this one? I despair about the state of literature in the world today. I will do my best in what follows, but there is no possible way to convey the true awfulness of this book. No matter how bad it seems, it was worse. Much worse. Let’s put it this way, I would rather listen to an endless concert by the Soronprfbs. Don’t get me wrong—I really liked the movie (Frank), but can you imagine listening to that for hours on end? Well, it would be better than the book I just read. Much better. So, really, listen to that song before reading further. Listen to the whole thing. All of it. Don’t stop. And then remember, the book is worse. Much worse.
The book:
Christmas is Murder,
by C.S. Challinor (which I sure hope is a pen name because surely nobody would want
to be known as the person who wrote Christmas
is Murder)
First: why did I read it?
It was a Christmas gift. I read
books people give me for Christmas. I
hasten to add that this book was not given to me by my wife. I hope the person who gave me this book has
never read it. I hope it was just on the
bargain rack of Christmas books at Barnes and Noble. (I am glad the person who gave me the book
does not know this blog exists.)
It was a story pretending to be a mystery—a sort of Agatha
Christie whodunit except Agatha Christie threw out manuscript fragments vastly
better than this. It isn’t fair to call
it a mystery because it was perfectly obvious who done it the whole time.
The best thing that can possibly be said about this book is
that it didn’t take long to read the whole thing. In fact, that is the only good thing that can
be said about this book. I am trying
hard to think of something else which was just bad instead of unbelievably awfully
bad, but I can’t. I started this blog post
thinking I would catalogue all the crimes of this book—not the crimes in the
book, but the crimes of the book, but I cannot bear to start listing them because
it would take forever. I don’t even know
where to start. So, how about this? I’ll give you the motive for the murder.
You see, there is this lady who runs a bed and
breakfast. Her husband and son both died
in Iraq. An editor from some publishing
house is staying at the bed and breakfast.
The editor has a manuscript she is supposed to read to decide whether to
publish the book or not. The manuscript
is a book about George Bush. So, the
owner of the bed and breakfast decides to murder the editor and burn the manuscript
because she doesn’t like George Bush. I’m
not kidding. That is the motive. By the way, the editor doesn’t like the manuscript—on
page 30, she calls her firm and tells them that the book is terrible and shouldn’t
be published.
That motive is one of the more plausible things in the book,
by the way. Because, if you kill some
mid-level editor at a publishing house to which an author submitted a
manuscript about George Bush, then obviously…hmmm. I can’t figure out what happens after that,
but it is obviously a good thing for someone whose husband and son died in
Iraq.
I know you don't believe me that the motive is one of the
more plausible things in the book. I know
you think the book can’t be that bad.
So, how about this? After the
editor dies, our hero, the amazing Rex Graves, looks for the manuscript, but it
can’t be found. But, gosh, there is a big
pile of ash in the fireplace. Maybe that
is the manuscript? Fortunately, there
are some small fragments that are not burned.
One of those fragments says “l Qa”
That starts lots of wondering about what “l Qa” could be. Hard to figure. So, they look in a dictionary and it turns out
every English word that starts with a Q is followed by a u. Shocking.
Yeah, you don’t believe me that this is shocking, but I can prove
it. A quotation from Christmas is Murder: “Well, blow me,”
Charley said. “I never realized every word in the English language beginning
with ‘q’ started ‘qu.’” (That
incidentally, is one of the more artfully written passages in the book.) Fortunately, our hero later sees a newspaper which
has...get this...an article about Al Qaeda...Wow! who would have thought of that...so, maybe
that heap of ashes was the missing manuscript about George Bush.
Ok, so that is not even remotely the most implausible thing
in the book. How about this? Three people are murdered in this hotel. Ah, but there is a big snowstorm. The hotel is close enough to town that our
hero can walk to the hotel from town using a pair of tennis rackets he inexplicably
brought along with him as snowshoes. Ah,
but the police can’t make it to the hotel.
Three murders, but, you know, the police guy in town, he has this cold,
see, and there is all that snow, I mean there is a lot of snow, so it is really hard
for the police to go up to the hotel to deal with all these murders, but maybe
in a day or two, if some of the snow melts, they can come up to investigate. Sadly, all the guests of the hotel also feel
obligated to hang around a hotel with a mass murderer running around because,
you know, it would be a drag to trudge through the snow to get down to town to
stay at a hotel with no mass murderer.
Well, except that our hero and his love interest do ski down to town to
go out for a beer, but, you know, it is rather silly to just stay in town, so
they go on back up to the hotel.
Yeah, that isn't the most implausible thing either. The most implausible thing is that anyone could
write this book and that anyone could read it and think it should be published. Yet it happened. I have the evidence on my desk. I despair.
Truly, I despair.
Oh, and if you still think the book can’t be all that bad,
if you think I am just exaggerating, then I dare you to read it. In fact, I double dog dare you to read it.
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