Cheap Straw Dogs (Blue Murder Series) (Book) (Gordon M Williams) Price

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Customer Reviews of Straw Dogs (Blue Murder Series)

watch the movie instead
Re-issued as part of Blue Murder's series of overlooked crime classics, STRAW DOGS (aka THE SIEGE AT TRENCHER'S FARM) would seem to be a likely candidate, being the basis for the controversial Sam Peckinpah film. Reading the novel, however, was somewhat of a letdown, and I got the feeling that Peckinpah bought the rights because he saw what he could do with the story, much like Hitchcock would sometimes turn a second-rate novel into a first-rate movie (FRENZY, for example). It's been a couple decades since I've seen the movie, but there seem to be considerable differences between it and the novel and, despite the flaws of the film version, I would definitely say that this is one of the few cases where the visual image is superior to the written word (e.g., THEY SHOOT HORSES DON'T THEY?, JAWS, THE TAKING OF PELHAM 1-2-3, HANNIBAL).

It is a bit hard to say exactly where this novel falters, exactly. It's like watching a piano player who hits all the right notes, but doesn't quite have the skill to transform the music into something special. A little more background details about each of the characters would have helped to make them more real (It was hard to sympathize with any of them-- a near-fatal flaw in any story), plus a little more tension, a little more suspense in bringing out the animosity between the townspeople and the professor and his wife. Though most of the last half of the book deals with the locals attacking the professor's house, there is insufficient psychological depth to really make the violence as gut-wrenching as it should have been. The fact that some of the writing is awkward doesn't help matters.

In the end, this comes across as an uneasy cobbling of DELIVERANCE (which, I know, this novel predates) and THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, not really worthy of revival.