Who, or why, or witch, or what?
Harriet Waugh
Simon Shaw continues with the adven- tures of his murderous, amoral actor Philip Fletcher in Dead for a Ducat (Gollancz, £14.95), whose character has begun to soft- en up just a little. He no longer, as in his masterpiece, Murder out of Tune, derives vicious pleasure in routing his enemies. Now he merely kills in self-defence. Since his last appearance in Bloody Instructions his career has nose-dived, he has lost his girl and has taken to self-pity, squalor and the bottle.
This changes when he is asked to appear for a vast amount of money as second lead in a no-hope film about Dick Turpin (despite turning up drunk and abusive for the interview with the producer). The lead- ing lady turns out to be a soft-porn star and Turpin is played by a gormless pop-singer, while the director is so spaced out on cocaine he's flying. Despite a constant sup- ply of whisky from the producer Philip sobers up and cannot help noticing that he is the victim of an unacceptable number of potentially lethal accidents.
Although it takes a little too long for the plot to get going, Dead for a Ducat is extremely funny. Mr Shaw is good at dialogue and, though there are no real sur- prises in who is doing what and why, there are plenty of ingenious twists in the way Philip reacts to events. Altogether a pleasure.
Andrew Taylor, who normally fields the clever, charming and morally defective
adventurer William Dougal, breaks away in The Barred Window (Sinclair-Stevenson, £14.95) and gives us an intriguing psycho- logical thriller which is also a 'who dunnit'.
Thomas Penmarsh is a reclusive, spinsterish, prematurely aged man of 48 when we meet him. He still sleeps in his childhood bedroom with bars on the window and occupies his time reading and taking pot-shots with an air-rifle at the cats in the garden. He lives under the protec- tion of his childhood friend and cousin, Esmond, with nothing much to disturb him until he is told that his daughter, Alice, whom he has not seen since she was a baby, is coming to stay. He is not stupid. Little by little, as the household nervously prepares for the coming ordeal of meeting her, the past is revealed and the reader begins to glimpse the enigma that is Thomas. Then there are Edmond's childhood refrains of, `I'll look after you' and `All for one, and one for all, United we stand, divided we fall.' These, coupled with the curious deaths that seem to surround them, become increasingly sinister.
Even if only half understood, and seen through Thomas' jealous gaze, every char- acter is distinctive. At the end it is left open how many people have died unnaturally. The Barred Window is quirky, high on atmosphere, good writing and ipteresting characters. Andrew Taylor also gives an enjoyable picture of the 1960s as experi- enced in a small, sleepy country town.
Two detective novels, one English, the other American, have at their centre the question of the genetic link in parental love. Both writers tell good stories, but the more powerful is Missing Joseph by Eliza- beth George (Bantam, £14.99). Set in rural Lancashire, it explores the death of a clergyman from food poisoning. He had apparently been accidentally fed water hemlock instead of wild parsnip by a natu- ralist. After a slow, slightly irritating start (there is an unnecessary and contrived sub- plot), Inspector Lynley, on holiday from Scotland Yard, investigates the curious `accident', as the reader explores the it's such a lovely day, it seemed a shame to waste it.' tumultuous lives of the villagers, which include witchcraft, unrequited passion, teenage sex and parental despair. Unlike most modern thrillers the ending Is stunning. It is a 'why dunnit', but with as many twists as a traditional `who dunnit'.
Degree of Guilt by Richard North Patter- son (Hutchinson, £14.95) is set in San Francisco. Christopher Paget is a highly successful lawyer whose life is disturbed when Mary Carelli, a television journalist and the mother of his son (a teenager whom he is bringing up), asks him to defend her on a murder charge. She has shot an eminent novelist in his hotel room, claiming that he had attempted to rape her. There is, inevitably, a past to Paget's and her relationship, and Paget has no reason to trust her. Worse, her story does not hang together; but Paget feels he has little choice but to defend her. This is, of course, another `why dunnit'. Nothing is quite what it seems, and there are some nasty shocks in store for Paget before the solution to the crime is arrived at. For the most part, Degree of Guilt is a highly enjoyable and complex thriller, but like many such Ameri- can offerings it suffers from a formalistic feel and too much heart-on-sleeve Political Correctness.
The Ice House by Minette Walters (Macmillan, £14.99) has been republished after winning the John Creasy Award for the best first crime novel of 1992. I missed it the first time around and it is well worth catching up on.
Three attractive women living together in a country house are considered by the villagers to be lesbians and possibly witch- es. Emotions boil over when the naked body of a man, too decomposed for identi- fication, is found in the old ice-house in the grounds. It looks as though the missing husband of Phoebe Maybury (the owner of the house and mother of two) has been found. The police reckoned she had got away with his murder ten years earlier. Now they hope, even though the body has obviously not been dead anything like ten years, to nail her for it. The women close ranks, but it does look as though they have something to hide. The novel is strong on atmosphere and characterisation, with good sharp dialogue and enough hints about gothic doings in the past to keep the reader well entertained.
Lesley Grant Adamson's The Dangerous Edge (Faber, £14.99) is a disappointment. The basic plot about the abduction 25 years earlier of a French child heiress, and its connection with a journalist being shot in Spain and an attempt on the life of a young Spanish singer, has the makings of a good story. But there are no surprises, and it ends in absurdity. The story is not improved by digressions into Czech politics and the female psyche. This is a pity because Miss Grant Adamson sometimes seems to be about to make the break- through that would land her on the same platform as Ruth Rendell and P. D. James.
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