In this installment novels from Britain (2), France, Sweden, Japan, U.S. (2), Scotland (2) and Canada: Peter Lovesey, Jean-Patrick Manchette, Henning Mankell, Seicho Matsumoto, Ed McBain, Horace McCoy, Val McDermid, Ian McEwan, William McIlvanney, and Margaret Millar.
51. LOVESEY, Peter: The False Inspector Dew (1982, Britain)
A cleverly composed crime comedy in which not a word is wasted – even the treatment of the sinking of the Lusitania at the beginning, while seemingly just introductory, is crucial to the plot. It is 1921 and Alma Webster, a reader of romances, is passionately in love with her dentist, Walter Baranov. There is only one problem: he is married to Lydia, a wealthy actress. On top of that, Lydia decides she and Walter will move to California as she wants to try her hand at the movies. Inspired by the Dr Crippen case, the lovers plot to murder Lydia on the trip to America, aboard the ocean liner Mauretania. Alma plays the role of Lydia (after she has disappeared), and in a playful whim Walter takes on the identity of Inspector Walter Dew, Crippen’s nemesis. Then it is discovered that a woman on board has been murdered and the captain invites “Inspector Dew” to investigate. The inexperienced Walter is unexpectedly successful in his new metier…
52. MANCHETTE, Jean-Patrick: Fatale (1977, France)
Jean-Patrick Manchette transformed the modern crime thriller into a weapon of gleeful satire and anarchic fun. In his mixture of farce, mayhem and madness, anything goes. His books are riotously enjoyable, but shouldn’t be taken too seriously - especially the short novel Fatale, which is Manchette's bloodiest, funniest and most brilliantly cathartic thriller yet.
Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942–1995) was a genre-redefining French crime novelist, screenwriter, critic, and translator. In addition to Fatale, he wrote Three to Kill, The Prone Gunman, Nada and The Mad and the Bad.
53. MANKELL, Henning: Faceless Killers (1997, Sweden)
Kurt Wallander, is a police inspector living and working in Ystad, is a small medieval town at the southernmost tip of Sweden, close to the large city Malmö. His wife Mona has left him and he has since had a difficult relationship with his rebellious only child, Linda. Wallander also has a difficult relationship with his father, an artist who thousands of times just paints the same landscape for money, and who disapproves of the career choice of his son. Inspector Wallander drinks too much, consumes junk food, doesn’t take exercise and struggles with his anger. He is always very much emotionally involved in the crimes he investigates. Over the years he becomes disillusioned with his work, not in the least because of office politics and the censure by colleagues and bosses of his brusque manner and aggressive tactics. Faceless Killers is the first volume of the 11-book series in which Wallander’s career and life are followed trough time - and it is a strong start. An elderly farm couple is brutally murdered with as only clue the word “foreign” - Wallander must find the killers before anger towards immigrants boils over... Later Wallander novels would become more sprawling, but this first one has an admirable conciseness.
54. MATSUMOTO, Seicho: Points and Lines (1958, Japan)
That the double suicide of a young couple on a secluded beach in Kyushu is not what it seems, comes to light thanks to the painstakingly gathering of evidence by two police officers. This detective novel was in three ways innovative: instead of the unrealistic mysteries by Yokomizo Seishi and others, this was a realistic police procedural; it was a “social mystery,” i.e. the background of the crime was formed by social injustice and corruption (Matsumoto singlehandedly created this sub-genre which would have countless followers) and thirdly, it was also a “railway travel mystery,” another important genre created by Matsumoto. Trains are a popular form of transport in Japan, more so perhaps then in other countries. The late 1950s were a time when Japan was getting on its feet again and people were starting to make holiday trips by rail. In Points and Lines, not only do the detectives travel a lot by train in the course of their job, the solution of the crime lies in a trick with the time table (by the way, something only possible in a country like Japan where all trains run exactly on time!).
55. McBAIN, Ed: King’s Ransom (1959, USA)
King's Ransom is one of the so-called “87th Precinct” police procedurals by Ed McBain (pseudonym of Evan Hunter). Note that McBain uses fictional names: New York is called "Isola" in his books, which is also the name for the largest district in the city, comparable to real-life Manhattan.
Shoe magnate Douglas King is told that his son has been kidnapped. An outrageous ransom of half a million dollars is demanded, an amount that will surely ruin the large deal the businessman is about to conclude. Then the son is discovered unhurt at home - by mistake the kidnappers have taken the son of the chauffeur. But the ransom remains the same and King faces a moral dilemma: shall he still pay the bank-breaking ransom, even now that it does not concern his own son anymore? What should he do, throw away his future or sacrifice someone else’s child? To him the answer is cynically clear. Detective Steve Carella of the 87th Precinct can only keep trying to find the kidnappers, and hope that Doug King will decide to give them the payoff. Because if he doesn’t, Carella will have a case of cold-blooded murder on his hands. In Carella's view, the capitalist stands several rungs below the kidnappers on the evolutionary scale. The reason I was interested in this novel, was the 1963 Japanese film High and Low, directed by Akira Kurosawa, which was loosely based on this novel (actually, I like the film better than the novel).
56. McCOY, Horace: They Shoot Horses, Don’t They? (1935, USA)
Robert Syverten is being sentenced for the murder of Gloria Beatty. He confesses that he killed her and begs mercy from the court. We then are told their story, how they met by chance, two young people unsuccessful in breaking into Hollywood as extras. Gloria talks Robert into participating in a dance marathon contest, which may be a way to get noticed by studio producers or movie stars. Together with 144 other desperate, jobless couples, Gloria and Robert enter the contest, which is held at a large amusement pier on the beach in Santa Monica. From the start, the bitter Gloria tells Robert that she wishes she were dead, but does not have the courage to kill herself. The dance contest is described in full, terrible detail – making the exhaustion the dancers feel palpable for readers. The marathon dance is an attempt at money-making voyeurism, complete with corporate sponsorships, manipulation of "reality", staged couplings, celebrity appearances, and an attempt to rake in cash from an audience that doesn't have much. McCoy gets to the very core of human desperation and misery, a cutthroat atmosphere where people will do anything just to survive... When they stand outside again after 5 weeks, with only 50 dollars earned for all their trouble, Gloria who has developed heart trouble begs Robert to kill her and hands him a small pistol.
McCoy's novel, the best example of absurdist existentialism in American fiction, was more popular abroad than in America when it was published at the height of the depression – it was praised in existentialist circles of France. This is a novel which fits better to (realistic) European than (falsely positive) American culture. And indeed, there couldn't be a more forceful indictment of craziness and superficiality.
57. McDERMID, Val: The Mermaids Singing (Scotland, 1995)
McDermid wrote 11 books in the "Tony Hill and Carol Jordan series." This is by far the best of them, a very exciting thriller in which Hill's expertise not only finds the killer, but also saves his own life. Full of gory details, so you'll need a strong stomach.
58. McEWAN, Ian: Nutshell (2016, Britain)
A literary tale of murder and deceit told from the unique perspective of an unborn child, hanging upside-down in his mother's womb with just two weeks to go before he will be born (like a “nut” in a “shell”). The baby's parents are John and Trudy, who live in an old London townhouse. John is a marginally successful poet and runs an equally marginally successful publishing house. But Trudy has an affair with the profoundly banal Claude, the brother of her husband. She has expelled John from the house, claiming that she needs extra rest in the last weeks of pregnancy. Despite the pregnancy, she and her lover are so hot for each other, that they have regular sex - and while they are at it, the poor baby is almost asphyxiated by the heavy shocks he is exposed to. Both plan to kill John, sell the house for a few million pounds, and then live together. Next John disappears, obviously killed by the two lovers, a crime to which the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb is witness. The police are on the track of the pair and they decide to flee abroad. Will the unborn child be able to stop them? Can he like Hamlet take revenge for his father? In his monologuing embryo McEwan has constructed a clever and virtuoso voice. A great story with a darkly comic plot, which on the surface is a variant of Shakespeare's Hamlet, as is also indicated by the naming of the two adulterers: Trudy (Gertrude in Hamlet) and Claude (Claudius).
59. McILVANNEY, William: Laidlaw (Scotland, 1977)
Laidlaw is the first in a series of crime books by Scottish author William McIlvanney, featuring the eponymous detective in his attempts to find the brutal sex related murderer of a Glasgow teenager. Laidlaw is known for his unconventional methods in tracking down the killer, and he immerses himself in a 1970s Glasgow full of violence and bigotry. This is a truly hardboiled crime novel, with rude and violent characters, who possess more muscles than brains (in fact, almost nothing of that last substance). I read this novel as if I was being introduced to a wild species, different from homo sapiens...
This novel is considered the first 'Tartan Noir' and is cited as being a source of inspiration for the more sophisticated Rebus novels by Ian Rankin.
60. MILLAR, Margaret, Beast in View (Canada, 1955)
A wealthy young recluse, Helen Clarvoe, receives a creepy phone call from someone who claims to know her and has seen in a crystal ball that an accident will befall her. The stranger on the phone says her name is Evelyn Merrick. Soon after the call ends, Helen trips over a chair in her bedroom, striking her face on a table. Bloody and frightened, she contacts her stock broker and long-time family friend for advice, and she manages to convince Paul Blackshear to play the amateur gumshoe: find this woman, and discover the basis for the call. Blackshear, retired since the death of his wife, is initially reluctant to help but upon seeing Clarvoe's distress agrees to track down Merrick. So he starts an amateur detective investigation which will reveal the dark secrets buried in Helen’s family - and in Helen herself.
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