Rogues' Gallery by
John Malcolm
hbk out May 05
Published by Allison Busby
at £18.99
A rather posh whodunit, the fifteenth in the Tim Simpson series about a
merchant banker who frequently becomes involved in murder and
skullduggery. Tim runs the Art Fund at White's Bank and is posted to a
south coast town ostensibly to lecture and then give financial advice to a
small gallery that is struggling to survive. Actually the bank want him
there to capture the business from a high-flyer who is one of the trustees.
As a starter, Tim chases off some thugs who are trying steal some old
magazines from his favorite Paddington antiquarian bookseller, which
turns out to be relevant to the rest of the story.
A lady who is researching the archives gets fatally beaten about the head
and from there the plot thickens no end, being bound up with the sexually
dubious works of Sickert, the one with whom Patricia Cornwell came
unstuck in her efforts to prove he was Jack the Ripper. In fact, the book
contains some caustic comments about that lady.
I enjoyed the book no end, not so much for the plot, but for the
marvellous writing style and the shafts of wit and political incorrectness
with which it is laced. The dialogue is deliberately pedantic, but displays
a superb mastery of the English language. It also delivers a mass of
information about the world of art and one almost expects Lovejoy to
appear at any moment!
(
Bernard Knight
ex Home Office Pathologist and author of the highly acclaimed Crowner John series)
Rogues' Gallery by
John Malcolm
