Jon Cleary was an Australian author. His most famous novel is The Sundowners which is about a rural Australian family…existing, I guess, and he also created a series detective, Scobie Malone which also has a setting of Australia. Yes, it probably seems redundant to point out an Australian author would have books that take place in Australia, but Vortex takes place in rural Southern United States and it makes sense to point it out because there is some odd choices that perplexed me until I looked up the author afterwards and saw he was from Australia.
I’m sure most people who picked up this book in 1977 were looking forward to a tornado disaster novel, as was I when I chose this bait and switch book. But if you’re looking for tornado adventure and harrowing action ala the movie Twister, you’d be dead wrong. The word spoiler usually has a negative connation but I’m here to give you the helping hand spoiler; the tornado doesn’t show up until page 247 of a 284-page book. Consider the disappointment spoiled.
The basic premise: We have an old money family in small town called Friendship, Missouri. Adult daughter is back in town because she’s dying of natural causes. She happens to be the mistress of the Vice President of the United States. So, he’s in town also because he loved her and wants to be there for her in her last moments. The brother hates the Vice President. The brother’s cheating wife is found shot in a house destroyed by a small tornado. (The tornado doesn’t count because it’s just casually mentioned after the fact.) The ex-NYC cop turned rural small-town sheriff has to solve the murder and make sure the Vice President stays safe all while preparing for the big tornado.
Hold on to your hats! And get prepared for lots of soul searching reminiscing and complicated relationship chit chat between the Vice President and anyone who will listen. Good lord, was it boring. If I had to break it up into a pie chart I’d say, 70 percent Vice President mistress relationship history, 25 percent murder mystery and 5 percent tornado.
The murdered wife of the brother was cheating on him supposedly with a local church farm guy and during the autopsy they found out she was pregnant. But they all know it wasn’t her husband because everyone in town knows he’s impotent. Every. One. I love how it’s common knowledge.
Friendship, Missouri is a small rural farm town and almost everyone in town is a…Democrat?! Ok, Australian writer. They literally force feed us whether a character is a Republican or a Democrat.
Well, Bill seeing as you’re a Republican, there’s news of a tornado coming.
It was so weird and pointless. It had nothing to do with anything. You think it’s going to come back around. Like the Republican Vice President’s life is in danger and the Democratic Police Chief lets him get killed as a lesson to us readers to show how getting caught up in the two-party politics robs you of your humanity. (P.S. it does). But no. No lesson was learned. It was the 1977 equivalent of Facebook.
More negatives? Sure!
Horrible portrayal of black folks. A side plot of two cop killing bank robbers running through town that was almost completely pointless. Like there wasn’t enough filler. And yeah, books from an older era have language etc that isn’t up to the standards of our current society, but this one was pretty racist. And I don’t mean a product of its time. It was like 1910s racism in 1977. It was very cringy.
Lackluster killer and motive.
Did I mention no Tornado?
It felt like Jon Cleary was swinging for a literature home run and struck out hard and in doing so he missed an easy and fun exploitive disaster genre base hit.
This is a hard pass from me.
Popular Library 1977
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