Thrillers
Harriet Waugh
The Artful Egg James McClure (Macmillan £7.50) Proof Dick Francis (Michael Joseph £8.95) A Shock to the System Simon Brett
(Macmillan 0.50) Not Dead, Only Resting Simon Brett (Gollancz £7.95)
Deadlock Sarah Paretsky (Gollancz £8.50) Bad Medicine Miriam Borgenicht (Macmillan £6.95)
Tames McClure's novels are new to me J although he seems to have been writing them for some years. What makes them refreshing and slightly different is that the stories are set in South Africa and the detective police heroes are a Boer and a Zulu. The absurdities of apartheid stories are mildly satirised and though the charac- ters are sterotyped, Indians being comic, most Boer policemen ignorant and thick, and liberals homespun, dedicated to bad art and drippy, the plot is well constructed and culminates in a dramatic solution that, unlike most modern detective novels, does not leave the reader dissatisfied. Because of this, James McClure is a minor find. In The Artful Egg, two unconnected murders are unravelled by Lieutenant Kramer and
,his underling, Bantu Detective Sergeant Zondi. The major plot concerns the mur- der of a banned female novelist who has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize (the sample of her writing given here is a sexed-up Barbara Cartland). As she is political and has left money to undeserving people, quarrelled with her only son and used acquaintances as characters in her books, there are plenty of suspects. There is also a large number of clues, some of them literary, that have our police couple scratching their heads. Back at the police station, keen to wrap the murder up before it becomes a political issue, the police fasten on the comic Indian postman whose lustful desires led him to discover the body. Meanwhile, in another part of town, the wife of a retired policeman appears to have suffered a fatal accident in the shower. Suspicion is aroused because, during his police career, her husband had been noto- rious for the number of fatal accidents that had accompanied his interrogation of sus- pects. Both these cases are satisfactorily solved against a background of racially inspired Keystone cops activity. Recom- mended.
Dick Francis's Proof starts off to good dramatic effect when a motorised horsebox inexplicably mows down several horsy peo- ple partying in a marquee, but then the novel takes off in quite another direction and turns out to be concerned with dubious practices in the catering and drink busi- ness. The hero is a wine merchant of racing ancestry who has a penchant for detection. I myself would not buy my wine off him, as his recommendations include some bad plonk, but as a detective he is shown to be resourceful in a crisis and clever at putting clues together. However dubious his palate, for the purposes of the story it is more sensitive than that of the average bobby, and so he finds himself on an extended pub-crawl, helping the police track down fraudulent wine and whisky sales. Bodies soon turn up and our hero gets beaten and has some nasty moments underneath the stands of a race-course. The story moves at a spanking pace and will not disappoint Dick Francis's fans. Personally, I have only ever thought him quite good.
Simon Brett has had two novels pub- lished recently. In the first, his regular amateur detective, Charles Paris, solves a knotty theatrical case of murder and in the other, A Shock to the System, he breaks new ground with a psychological thriller about a man who involuntarily kills some- body and then becomes addicted to the pleasures of murder. The idea of the latter book is better than its execution. Although it is well paced and dramatic, the central character is crudely drawn and the psychol- ogy creaky. However, his Charles Paris detective story, Not Dead, Only Resting, is as enjoyable as ever. Charles, a failed actor who is doing a bit of interior decorating while 'resting', stumbles on the gruesomely cut-about corpse of the lover of a male restaurateur whose establishment is much frequented by famous actors. The chief suspect is the missing restaurateur and the assumption is that it is a crime passionel.
Charles is asked to investigate, by some homosexual friends of the missing man.
There are plenty of clues and amusing characters but, as usual, the ending is a little contrived. I foresaw it a mile off, and the missing piece of information that seals the fate of the killer is absurd. But, despite the flaws, I have a soft spot for Charles Paris, who is one of the most likeable, amusing and realistic amateur detectives in modern fiction.
Sarah Paretsky, an American, has come up with a convincingly tough woman pri- vate detective. Vic Warshawski, the heroine, who is intelligent, pleasant and good looking, takes a battering and moves
faster than the reader. Most important, she does not cheat on the evidence. In Dead-
lock, she investigates the death of a much loved cousin, an ex-ice-hockey star who drowned while working for a grain- shipping company. Vic does not think he slipped, as the police contend, nor does she think that he killed himself. Soon she is deeply embroiled in the cut-throat intri- gues of the shipping business, fraud, cri- minal damage — a ship gets blown up — and efforts to kill her. She is both emotion- al and hard-headed, ergo female. The novel is strongly plotted and, although the ending is signalled a little too early on, Sarah Paretsky is quite a find.
Miriam Borgenicht's Bad Medicine is in the cosy, romantic mould made popular by such writers as Patricia Wentworth and Georgette Heyer, and almost as enjoyable. Nan Dunlop is a pretty nurse who marries an elderly, attractive consultant. Her hus- band then kills himself. Nan is ostracised by her former friends and workmates who think she is a cold-hearted gold-digger who drove her husband to take his life. She decides to defend her reputation by finding out why her husband killed himself. With some help from a young doctor, and some hindrance from her husband's dark, satur- nine lawyer, she unravels the past. As the skeletons start tumbling out of the cup- board, there are attempts on her life. It is quite nicely plotted until the ending and agreeably romantic.
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