Counting Coppers
IN crime fiction we have quite a convention of hatred for State justice. It is unusual to come across a novel which is pro-police. We prefer our heroes to be clumsy innocents, bullied nearly senseless by a ruthless set of cops. but gloriously vindicated at the end. The local policeman always drawls with menace at the wrong suspect and gleefully we savour his bucolic wonder as a pri- vate eye destroys him. It's the same old story as Milton's God—virtue lacks glamour—and the Establishment plays Aunt Sally for us all. In- vincibly they pass from bed to bed, these detec- tives of ours, while coppers come home to cosy wives who bring comfort at all hours with steaming British meals.
Even so, there must be something to be said for the police. Eric Bruton tries to present them as a likeable human crowd in The Laughing Policeman (Boardman, 12s. 6d.) One of their men has been deliberately run down by a Jaguar after a Tiny and Incompetent Mail Robbery. Investigation of an apparently unconnected suicide attempt provides an illuminating link be- tween the two cases. The author's occasional bitterness against press and public is probably inevitable in such a warm admirer of the police. One feels that the lady doth protest too much.
Back to the bullies with The Confessor, by Jackson Donahue (Arthur Barker, 18s.). The need for a conviction rather aggravates police suscep- tibility to Marty Sinclair's confession and they get quite ratty when the psychiatrist says he is innocent of murdering a woman and leaving her naked in a ditch. Some men have the compulsion to confess. But Sinclair has a mad craving for punishment. Normally the people who make false confessions are easy to prove innocent, but this man convicts himself with deliberation when-
ever a loophole appears in his evidence. His marvellous physical prowess with women is matched by a desperate need to dominate. Care- lessly he humiliates people and has them grovelling at his feet. Afterwards he vomits with disgust. Inexorably, this handsome, arrogant boy prepares his own black coffin, insulting the friends who might have saved him, avoiding the doctors who want to diagnose his sickness. The book is. incidentally, quite a good argument against capital punishment, but this need not deter diehards who relish suspense regardless of its political colouring.
Campus Corpse, by Kenneth Hopkins (Mac- donald, 12s. 6d.), is a delightful new Gerry Lee story, stuffed with good cracks about America, whither our versatile reporter has gone to lec- ture about newspapers. Crime among the dons takes rather a literary turn and there's a subtle clue in a copy of Guy Mannering. Lee has his fill of American sensations—riding in a police car with all sirens going and buying souvenir ash-trays of Davy Crockett. At a cocktail party he laughs to himself about the 'brick-built bar- becue by which American families manage to eat inconvenient meals within sight of the com- forts of the house.' Naturally he acquires a bed- dable girl and some astute friends who join in the amateur sleuthing. The deaths are most theatrical and great fun is had by all.
Several quite fascinating skeletons are un- earthed from dusty cupboards in Rhona Petrie's Death in Deakins' Wood (Gollancz, 15s.). A real old prehistoric diplodocus completes the bony pattern. Death comes swiftly to a number of dis- connected people and suspicion seems to fall on a charming young widow whom the Detective Chief Inspector finds most attractive. He is the kind of policeman who approaches an arrogant scientist with an appropriate quotation from Newton and stages a daring confrontation during a- musical evening at which he is playing the flute. We get a bewildering amount of absorbing information about local characters. A stately old lady paints in the fields and rides daily on a, flagging mare and a liberal couple play Gregorian chants and struggle happily with an adopted coloured baby. My favourite moment is when a child admires a throbbing lorry in a traffic jam —'It was a green one with wide chrome dentures.'
'When they lifted him into his coffin, he weighed no more than a child of ten.' That, in Simenon's The Iron Staircase (Hamish Hamil- ton, 12s. 6d.), was how Louise's first husband had ended, after wasting away for months. Lomel had replaced him. The Lomels lived above her business premises and the staircase led straight from the shop into her bedroom. He was com- pletely dependent on his wife, both financially and emotionally, but this did not seem to matter until he realised that the pattern was being re- peated. Now he was the unwanted husband while Louise made assignations with a boy. Simenon is sometimes rather a glib writer, but this story is well worth reading.
The considerable fortune left to Charles Leithan in The Benefits of Death, by Roderic Jeffries (Crime Club, 12s. 6d.), must go straight to the innocent party if his marriage ends in divorce. The Leithans are consequently trapped together in their dislike, each avidly willing the other to make the first slip. When Mrs. Leithan disappears, her husband is obviously suspect, especially when he takes the whole thing so calmly. The police try to break him down to a confession of murder by noisily searching his grounds at night and flashing torches about. A staunch loving woman supports him 'in adversity. She is a writer by profession and does knitting
in the evening as 'a self-imposed misery that Leithan described as masochistic.' It's a wittily told story with a wry twist in its tail.
A moderately silly young camper finds two dead bodies in his tent within a short period of time. Flustered by these nocturnal discoveries, he only tells the police about one of them in Adders on the Heath, by Gladys Mitchell (Joseph, 16s.). Luckily for him, that fierce old battleaxe, Dame Beatrice LeStrange Bradley, takes an interest in his case. Her frequent cackles of amusement are sometimes accompanied by 'a fearful and won- derful leer' as she flattens the young man's startled accusers. A rather facetious jollity impairs this intriguing yarn.
When 'FILM STAR DECAPITATED' becomes the sensational evening headline, a determined film director distracts attention from the culprit with all sorts of crazy gimmicks. A Corpse in Camera, by Droo Launay (Boardman, 12s. 6d.), features the irrepressible Adam Flute, private eye extra- ordinary. He gets plenty of female encourage- ment, but it's hard to tell which practised flirter is genuine. Charm and deduction ensure him a ringside view of the finale—a scene of epic splendour to match any director's dream.
Middle-aged Bob Lundy was happily married, with two kids. Only excitement was lacking in a contented life. But 'It was a long time since he had seen the firm, rosy flesh of youth.' Helen McCloy's Before I Die (Gollancz, 15s.) investi- gates the urges that make fools of ageing men and blind them to the calculating cruelty of a young mistress. This particular soft-spoken ingenue is more than just a marriage-breaker : she wants a man who'll dare to murder for her. She meets unexpected opposition in an excellent final twist.
ANTONIA SANDFORD
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