A Little Less Than Kind

by Charlotte Armstrong

A young man sets out to prove that his new stepfather, David Crown, is a killer after his mother, a widow after his father's sudden death, remarries with suspicious haste

Genres: Mystery, Crime, Gothic

223 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

About the author

Full name Charlotte Armstrong Lewi. Wrote 29 novels, plus short stories and plays under the name Charlotte Armstrong and Jo Valentine. Additional writing jobs: New York Times (advertising department), Breath of the Avenue (fashion reporter).

Reviews

[Greg · Rating 1 out of 5]

COUNTDOWN: Mid-20th Century American Crime
BOOK 239 (of 250)
Hook=1 stars: This novel takes a bit too much time for the story to kick in. About 2+ chapters.
Pace=2: A bit slow going, given Armstrong uses on 75,456 words (the minimum for most publications in this genre).
Plot=2: A son feels his very ill father may have been "hurried along" to the grave. Interesting, but a subplot about abuse feels like an entirely different story, used to stretch this to 75K words.
People=1: Once the book is closed, the characters fade fast.
Place=1: Very much lacking in any kind of atmosphere. Just a regular house with a family: we could be anywhere, anytime.
Summary: My average rating is 1.4 (rounded to 1 stars for goodreads). A flat story with a flat and conclusion but oh, the cover promises us a slightly unnerving "Mrs. Robinson" situation without a delivery on this or any other level.

[Kate · Rating 3 out of 5]

For my full review click on the link below:
https://crossexaminingcrime.wordpress...

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 1 out of 5]

Boy, I'm really pickin' em lately. Charlotte Armstrong specialises in head cases; her killers tend to be psychotic in one way or another. This book is no exception, though there's no actual killing.
As the title indicates, this book is a reboot of Hamlet, with 1960s psychoanalytical theory behind it. Did Hamlet have an Oedipal complex with his mother, and was the "ghost" he saw just a projection? Was he "revenging" his dead father to revenge his own thwarted desires?
My problem is I know Hamlet so well that I found this remake just annoying, even as I recognised Horatio and Polonius and Ophelia (though thankfully no Rosencrantz and Morgenstern, dead or alive). The whole time I was reading it, I didn't feel "suspenseful"--just impatient. To top off all the tropes, she put in an African American cook housekeeper who constantly (and I quote) "rolled her eyes" and gave in to hysteria, whether from fear, sorrow or joy. Echhh.

What a waste of four hours.

[Megan · Rating 1 out of 5]

A retelling of Hamlet through a Freudian lens. I've never liked Hamlet. Or Freud, for that matter. The characters are all so deeply unlikable, and the writing so overwrought --all people screaming on the inside, wailing and trembling and bursting into tears every few pages-- that it's hard to feel anything for anyone.

[Sharon Healy-Yang · Rating 4 out of 5]

A Little Less than Kind is an interesting take on the Hamlet mythos, updating it to the mid twentieth century. Here, much like Elmer Rice's Cue for Passion, the Claudius figure is not such a bad guy and Hamlet really is nuts. It may not be premium Shakespeare, but the book is fine Armstrong. Once more, she effectively explores how the superficiality and materialism of the mid-century has warped human beings and left them unable to connect with one another in a healthy manner.