Comes the Dark by
David Stuart Davies
hbk out April 06
Published by Hale
at £16.99
This is another in the author's 'Johnny One-Eye' series, about a private
detective in wartime London. Written in the first-person, it is a chronicle
of John Hawke, invalided from the Army after an accident takes out one
of his eyes. He witnesses an incident of Jew-baiting, which gets him
involved in a covert fascist organisation, which he infiltrates. At the same
time, there is a series of prostitute murders going on, which baffles his
friends at Scotland Yard. A further complication is that his brother
becomes a suspect in these and is charged with murder. In the latter part
of the book, he is on the run from the Fascists, ending in an exciting finish.
The book is reminiscent of Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and
Mickey Spillane and the other 'hard-boiled' writers of that period. Not
only is it set in 'forties London, but the style of writing is also of that
time. I am not sure if every detail is accurate, as in May 1941, Johnny
reads in the newspaper that 'the Germans had made advances into
France', though Dunkirk was in the summer of 1940. As someone who
was around that that time, I also wonder if he would have been lucky
enough to get bacon and egg so often in a café, as well as whisky
whenever he seemed to want one, but this is trivial nit-picking of an
entertaining story that uses an increasingly popular period, as television
dramas such as 'Foyle's war' prove. For older folks, this is a piece of
nostalgia – and for the younger, almost 'historical fiction'.
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
; width=){kind=small}
Comes the Dark by
David Stuart Davies
