In Twenty-Four Hours, Louis Bromfield takes a plot that appears to be plodding off in one direction, gives it more twists than a bag of pretzels, and turns out a story that seems perfectly plausible.
As the curtain rises, old Hector Champion is giving a dreary dinner to distract himself from worry over the results of medical tests he will get the following day. His dinner guests include a nouveau riche financier, the financier’s current mistress and her husband, Hector’s nephew, the woman the financier wishes to marry, and the woman who had wanted to marry Hector some 50 years before.
As the party breaks up, Hector gets a telegram from his black-sheep sister who scandalized society years before by running off with her brother-in-law.
Bromfield leaves Hector at home fretting and follows the guests home.
Before 24 hours are up, the financier breaks up with his mistress and proposes to another woman, Hector’s nephew marries his actress girlfriend, two people are murdered, the mob puts a contract on one of the murderers, and the cuckolded husband is in a fair way to be fingered for the other murder.
By dinner the next evening, 67-year-old Savina Jerrold has straightened out all the remaining muddles, including Hector.
Twenty-Four HoursBy Louis Bromfield
Frederick A. Stokes, 1930
463 pages
1930 bestseller #10
My grade B+
© 2010 Linda Gorton Aragoni
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