THE FAMILY VAULT

by Charlotte MacLeod ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 16, 1979

In Rest You Merry (1978), MacLeod's lighthearted knack for caricature in the Ngaio Marsh vein was perfectly accommodated--in the byways of New England academia. Here she's on Beacon Hill, and the mix of mayhem and comic exaggeration is less successful. The main problem is heroine Sarah Kelling, who never seems remotely real as she survives through a festival of death and disaster: when she witnesses the opening of the family vault, she discovers the body of a long-missing burlesque queen; she's convinced that her much-older husband is the murderer; and by the time she discovers that it wasn't him, but rather his deaf-and-dumb tyrant of a mother and her secret lover, both husband and mother-in-law die in a suspicious car crash. MacLeod squeezes some humor out of the stuffiness of old Boston society, but it's never convincingly contemporary--more for the gothic fans than those who enjoyed Rest You Merry.

Pub Date: March 16, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Doubleday

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION