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Title: Murder in Mount Holly

Author: Paul Theroux

Narrator: Nathan Osgood

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 7 mins

Language: English

Release date: 06-01-12

Publisher: Whole Story Audiobooks

Ratings: 2 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

It's 1960s America, and Herbie Gneiss is forced to leave college to get a job. Mr. Gibbon, a patriotic veteran of three wars, works with Herbie at Kant-Brake toy factory. When Herbie is drafted, Mr. Gibbon feels that he, too, should do something for his country; and so he decides to rob the Mount Holly Trust Company....

Members Reviews:

The Over-the-Hill Gang Rides Again...

Murder in Mount Holly was originally published only in Britain in 1969 and was one of prolific novelist Paul Therouxâs earliest works. Itâs a rather weird black comedy that supposedly satirizes American values, but its characters are so dim-witted and eccentric that itâs hard to take anything they do seriously. the major characters include a young man and his mother, plus an elderly schoolteacher and her boarder, a cantankerous old coot who is the epitome of the grumpy old man. The older characters are also pretty racist and politically simple-minded, which leads to a moronic plan to rob a bank. The proceedings presumably take place in the mid-60s as there are allusions to Lyndon Johnsonâs gall bladder operation and the escalating Vietnam War. The bookâs conclusion descends into some pretty black comedy that justifies the title. Theroux does have brevity working for him here as Murder is basically a novella of less than 150 pages. Passably entertaining if you like the antics of odd people.

Dark Comedy and Political Satire

Publication of this "new" novel by Paul Theroux will certainly catch the eye of longtime fans of the man's work, but this time there is both good and bad news for fans to consider. The good news is that Theroux's Murder in Mount Holly is, indeed, a "new" novel to most American readers because it has never before been published in this country; the bad news is that the novel is actually forty-two years old and most definitely shows its age. The American version of this short novel first published in the U.K. in 1969 - and republished there in 1998 as part of a Theroux collection - is finally being released.

Murder in Mount Holly is a dark comedy set during the turbulent years of American history during which the generations were largely split by angry debate over the rightness or wrongness of the Vietnam War. Theroux uses an assortment of characters thrown together by chance to illustrate how this unpopular war affected Americans of all ages and political beliefs. The over-the-top approach to storytelling he uses here, despite not always working well for Theroux, does make this short novel a hard one to forget.

College student Herbie Gneiss, at the insistence of his recently widowed mother, decides to leave school so that he can financially support her huge grocery consumption pace (this is one very large woman). This will prove to be an exceptionally poor decision when young Herbie is drafted just weeks after finding work at the Kant-Brake company, a firm that produces detailed and realistic war toys for America's children. Rather unfortunately for his mother, as it will turn out, Herbie has already introduced her to the new love of her life, Mr. Gibbon, an older man he met at his boarding house. When Herbie leaves for basic training, his mother moves into that boarding house to be near Mr. Gibbon- and the trouble begins.

The rest of this short novel involves the planning and execution of a farcical bank robbery by Mr.