COLD COMFORT

by David R. Slavitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 1980

Grieving father takes revenge--in a banal kill-athon by an author better known as Henry Sutton. Widower and dry-cleaner Stanley Miller is awakened one night to be told that his son is dead at Fargate College as a result of a hazing party by Lambda Mu on pledge night. The lad, a non-drinker, was forced to drink three pints of booze while locked into a car trunk, and the shock to his system killed him. Miller wants vengeance, or at least a satisfactory investigation of the affair. But the local sheriff wants to call the death an accident and avoid scandal, the D.A. fears for his skin, Stanley's platitudinous lawyer tells him to forget it, and the dean of the college refuses to see him. So Stanley visits the homosexual president of the Lambda Mu alumni association, who was at the hazing, and beats him to death with a poker--leaving behind a pint of rum as his signature. Then he shaves his head, takes a dishwashing job at the college, and trails the dean--till he catches him leaving his new mistress, kidnaps him, and throws him from the college belltower. Meanwhile, Stanley has sold his dry-cleaning business and collected enough money for an escape to--well, possibly Brazil. The third and final murder of a college official has its difficulties, but Stanley blows the man apart and then fades from the grasp of the police. Happily fulfilled, he goes into exile with a ladyfriend and escapes justice. . . . Nonstop violence, but somehow bloodless and bland.

Pub Date: May 1, 1980

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Methuen

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1980

Categories: FICTION