The Vices

This is an intelligent, witty, and yet also somber novel about the unnamed narrator, and his friendship with Oliver Vice.

Oliver Vice went missing at the age of 41, while on the ship Queen Mary 2. His best friend, the narrator, investigates his disappearance. This investigation grows into a desire to write the story of the Vice family, which he does as this book unfolds.

While he tells Vice's story, he also tells his own story - how he and Oliver became close friends, and how he subsequently became sucked into the "world of Vice."

It's a novel about a man who wants to write a biography about a mysterious family. It reads like fiction and biography at the same time.

If you like a little bit of mystery in your novels, this one is for you. If you are intrigued by the study of eccentric people, family history, and the lies we often believe are true, this book is for you.

(I received this book through Amazon's Vine Program.) ( )

"The good news is that as I got into it, I didn’t find myself wondering why The Vices hadn’t found its way to the bottom of a publisher’s wastebasket. It’s not perfect, but then again, even the books I’ve tagged as “brilliant” on LibraryThing aren’t either..." http://connorsferguson.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/the-vices/ ( )

http://www.bostonbibliophile.com/2011/08/review-vices-by-lawrence-douglas.html ( )